On occasion, we get customers who “think” they still smell something after a treatment. Upon inspection, and even with the noses of others who don’t know the history of a home, we can’t smell anything. So does it smell or not?

In case you’re not familiar with our story, the founding member of Smell Fresh Arizona had an issue with a smelly vehicle. Every time he’d open the door, he’d smell something fowl. Unfortunately for him, he developed a hypersensitivity to smells from his vehicle. This is known as Disosmia, which can be caused by mental conditions. In his case, he became conditioned to look for a smell every time he opened the door to his vehicle.

We see this sometimes with our customers. Once they’ve made up their mind that a property stinks, they consciously or unconsciously start looking for smells as soon as they enter the property. With time, this can go away after accepting that something doesn’t stink any more, but a good way to be sure is to look for feedback from others who have not been preconditioned to something smelling. Be sure not to jade their thoughts. If you tell them something use to stink, or to start looking for a smell, their minds can start fabricating or amplifying subtle odors.

We had a recent smelly house that we successfully treated, but the owner insisted the smell came back. We went back and didn’t smell anything, and the Real Estate Agent didn’t smell anything either. We offered to retreat the property at no charge, but the Agent’s wisdom prevailed. She suggested we give it another week as an active listing, and see if we got any smelly feedback from buyers who walked the home. After a week on the market, there were no complaints about the home smelling. Whereas prior to our treatment, every buyer who walked through the home complained about it smelling. So the foul odor was gone, and it just took a few other noses to help convince the owner that maybe the smell wasn’t there anymore.