how to fix my boyfriend’s smelly house?

my boyfriend and i are at university and have been together for about two years. recently he moved into a new uni house and it’s awful. it was dirty, mouldy, and filled with maggots when he moved in, even the landlord gave up on the house. it’s been cleaned a bit since he’s lived there but the place stills smells awful. his housemates also smoke in the house, which adds to the smell. but now the smell has started attaching to him and his clothes, and it’s horrible. he came over to mine to sleep the other night and i had to send him back home because the smell was so bad it was making my house smell.

how do i fix this? it’s made me so distant from him so it’s really affecting our relationship. he is generally clean but just unlucky with the house, but i just can’t live with it anymore.

Reply 1

EVRoosevelt

I'm sorry for the situation, it sounds horrid :frown:

As for fixing it, here is what I would (endeavour to!) do:
1.) Get the housemates to stop smoking indoors. If they're vaguely reasonable people, it shouldn't be too great an ask. Unless every member of the household is content with indoor smoking, no-one ought to be smoking indoors! It's not remotely hygienic, and the affects of second-hand smoking are well-known, and not great.

2.) This depends on how much work your boyfriend is willing to put in. If the landlord has given up on the place, and none of your boyfriend's housemates care (perhaps they will, and he can convince them to help), he will have to take matters into his own hands, and deep-clean the place. Mould is deeply unpleasant, but I have dislodged black mould from an in-built cupboard with a mixture of hot water and Dettol (but not Dettol and bleach, because that makes Chlorine gas!). This *whilst wearing rubber gloves* mixture, scrubbed into the mould with either a good scrubbing brush or a flannel, should with effort help to get rid of it. Though the water will probably be filthy, and you'll have to change it several times before you're done, particularly if the mould is widespread!

3.) Mop! (Unless the place is carpeted, in which case, thoroughly vacuum as part of the deep-clean.)

I'm afraid I've no idea on the maggots - it depends where they are, I suppose. If they could all be humanely collected and taken outside (but I'm guessing there are too many of them for this), that might be an option?

(edited 6 months ago)

Perfume

sorry to hear about this, and really bad example set by the landlord

Thankfully not my area of expertise but I know you can buy fumigation smoke bomb things - we had a weird fly infestation in the attic space of our (admittedly very old) house - got the smoke things from Pest Expert on ebay, they also sell carpet spray and related stuff

How are the drains? Another (cheap) option is to pour a load of Caustic Soda crystals down all the pipes - kitchen, bathroom and outside, leave overnight and flush - beware it will strip chrome etc

If it was me I would smoke the whole house with a bunch of bombs and move out for a day or two if you can - alternatively I might be tempted to threaten the landlord with legal action, or the bill . . .