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Is there a product to mask household odors?


quigley

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We have some annoying bathroom and kitchen odors that have been lingering.  Of course the best solution is to remove the source of these odors.  Right now we are thinking short term, however.

Is there a lo.cal product that you can suggest that can absorb odors?

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Zounds like Zeolite. Mexico has large reserves of this mineral, which is an excellent, natural odor absorber. I believe you can heat it and reactivate it. Saying that - I have no clue where to buy it here. It seems to be a product ever body champions, but never gathers enough traction to show up on retail store shelves. There are also activated charcoal canisters, which a fan either pushes or pulls through. These might be available on Amazon.com.mx - but it will probably be an import item. The fan/filter combos are quite expensive.

edit: I am having a higher than ever batting average for web searches. Here you go:

Interesting - it also appears zeolite absorbs arsenic and heavy metals in water supplies. Maybe somebody could buy some PVC pipe to make inexpensive, gravity fed water filters for people who can't afford bottled water, and live in areas with contaminated wells - DIF knows where they are. There is a young man on, or associated with, Chapala council who is very proactive on eco solutions.

http://listado.mercadolibre.com.mx/zeolite#D[A:zeolite]

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Cover your drains, as they may not have traps and are allowing sewer gasses into the kitchen and bathrooms.  Check under your kitchen sink to see if there is a P-trap.  If not, install one.  Also check under bathroom sinks in the same manner.  Cover shower and tub drains with a rubber disk; available at any hardware store.

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Also check for traps in the laundry room. My current place had none, and there was quite a stink. I also "extra flush" from time to time. Some of these pipes run very close under the surface, going from the toilet to the shower to the laundry room and kitchen sinks. When I first moved here, I just thought it was another 'smell of Mexico'. 'Taint.

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Yes, cover the drains, but for some reason the basic principle of plumbing "vent stacks" seems to have completely eluded MX in general. Many of the "traps" used in MX are a very shallow type and easily compromised by the suction of a flushing toilet or other rush of water nearby, emptying the trap to the point of allowing sewer gas to backup. My lovely house in Riberas was no different and I installed "air admittance valves" under several sinks (Home Depot), unfortunately I could do nothing to alter the master bath toilet/shower drain structure, so every time the toilet flushed, the shallow trap in the shower went dry. Pretty much every store around has the large flat white rubber stoppers you throw over the drain when not in use. And, I always had a saucer of ground coffee beans sitting around, I loved the smell of hickory nut blend beans.

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There is a product called Nilodor. You put a few drops around, and you have to do it fairly regularly. It is a liquid and itself smells like wintergreen, which I happen to love. I rub a few drops inside bins where I have clothes and bedding stored. Have no idea if available in Mexico. Mine is from Canada.

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Try OdoBan. I spray it down my drains. It seems to work on eliminating odors not just masking them. I have gotten it at Sam's Club in Guadalajara and maybe once in Costco. I will try to find out if they still carry it. Sorry but I don't know of any place locally.

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Shower and laundry floor drains have barrel traps that don´t hold very much wáter and if no wáter is added for a few weeks from non use it will evaporate enough and let drain gas into your house. I take a small bucket of wáter and pour it down the drain in the laundry room and in the linen closet with a floor sink for mopping upstairs turn on the tap everytime it starts to smell and in the extra bathrooms I turn on the showers for a minute and it´s gone until next time. Putting rubber over these types of floor drains helps keep the wáter from evaporating fast when left open. Many people keep rubber on the floor drains to keep the cockroaches out also.Some hotels and houses have floor drains in the bathroom floor.

https://www.google.com.mx/search?q=floor+drains&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia4pTTzbLTAhUl9IMKHRiBAgsQ_AUIBigB&biw=1366&bih=615#spf=1

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If your home has a second floor bathroom and is built with Ballut block flooring, or boveda brick, more than likely your shower won't have any trap due to clearance issues, so those rubber stopper come in handy. Can't vouch that even lower floors use traps on shower drains. Also, the size of the pipe limits trap use, the house we are building in Guanajuato City has 6" drains. US is using 3" for the most part now, sometimes 4".

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Those rubber drain covers aren't very good at keeping odours down below. They are to prevent insects from crawling up. You need a water trap on on all drains and make sure there is always water in them.

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