There’s nothing quite like the joy that comes from having a family pet, whether it’s a comforting weight sleeping on your lap, or the delicate scamper of tiny feet across your back. Pets are especially great for kids
Pets are cherished additions to your family, but they can also leave your home smelling less-than-pleasant. These smells build up slowly in bedding and areas where air hardly moves. With a smarter and more targeted approach, you can effectively remove pet odors and make your home fresh again. Here are the easy home tips to prevent pet smells before they take over.
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Essential Tips to Keep Pet Odors At Bay:
1. Wash or Change Pet Bedding Before It Starts to Smell
When it comes to more traditional pets like cats and dogs, we’re talking their favorite sleeping spot – whether that’s a cushion in a basket or crate, or the comforter on your bed. There’s no substitute for regular washing of bedding, same as with humans’ sheets and towels.
The reason is really quite basic: Oils, dirt, and other organic residue like dander live on your pet. Whenever your pet curls up in their fave nap spot, all those materials transfer to their bedding, where they start to build up. None of this fabric smells immediately; but after a few days, that bedding or furniture becomes the main odor source in your home.
For cats and dogs:
Start by picking loose particles by hand or with a lint roller before you load anything into the machine. Follow the care guidelines and make sure they dry well before returning them to your pet’s sleeping zone. Wet beds can create a stale smell fast.
And don’t forget about your pet’s favorite sofa spot or comfy chair! These spots accumulate the same oils and odors as dedicated pet beds if you forget to wash them. Staying on top of this one habit goes a long way toward keeping a clean and organized home with animals.
For rodents:
For other pets like gerbils and guinea pigs, their main bedding is more likely to be a mix of shredded materials that need regular changing, perhaps also with a fabric nest or hammock. Keeping that replaceable matter clean and dry is the only way to keep odors under control.
With our gerbils, we found that a water bottle leaking onto their shredded paper bedding was an instant recipe for a stinky habitat. You should give your critters’ habitat a thorough cleaning at least once a week, removing used bedding and poop pellets and washing surfaces before adding clean bedding. And in the case of our boy-boys (as we called our pet gerbils), ensuring their water bottle was never dripping on their clean bedding was a must!
2. Improve Airflow Instead of Masking the Smell
Sprays and plug-in air fresheners only cover up the smell. According to the EPA, managing indoor odors involves reducing activities that encourage odor and providing adequate ventilation for your indoor environment. However, most people skip ventilation when dealing with pet odors.
Natural Ways to Reduce Pet Odors:
The easiest tips include opening windows when outdoor conditions allow. Ceiling or portable fans can move air through the rooms your pet uses most. Making pet beds away from crowded zones and washing curtains also reduces the likelihood of odors building up. Use family-friendly natural smell absorbers like activated charcoal if possible.
Selecting for less smell when choosing your pet
Another tip is to reduce the amount of pet residue floating around your house in the first place. Shorter-hair and lower-shedding cat breeds can reduce the amount of cat hair floating about, as can regular brushing or bathing. Not only will this help with odors, but it will also help make your home less of a disaster area for allergy-sufferers.
It’s also worth considering your future pet’s habits when choosing a breed. For example, compact and shorter-coated breeds like stunning French Bulldogs often choose one or two resting areas and hardly leave them. Those spots can accumulate odor faster than expected. Better airflow around frequently used areas makes a noticeable difference without extra cleaning. Or just choose a type of pet known for being less stinky in the first place – for example, choosing gerbils instead of ferrets.
3. Keep Floors and Litter Boxes Clean
Your floors and litter boxes deserve the same treatment as pet bedding and sofas. Animal hair and general debris collect on the surface and contribute quietly to that stale smell that builds up over time.
This buildup can be not only smelly, but hazardous to your health; I was never allergic to cats until my teens, by which point all three cats in our home were regularly sleeping on my double bed. Within months, I was highly allergic to cats; within a few more years, despite moving away from cats, I had added allergy-induced asthma to my chronic conditions.
Feeding and favorite resting spaces develop the smell faster if you don’t check them daily. Sweep or vacuum those areas to prevent the odor from building up. Focus on the zones where your pets spend more time since those are where smell stays most. Follow up with a mop on floors using an appropriate cleaner.
Likewise, cleaning the floors every day keeps the house fresh for you and your pets. If you have cats, litter box maintenance should also be part of the plan – NOT something that you only do when the problem becomes hard to ignore! Remove waste daily, and follow the recommendations for how many times to clean the box or replace it. (Or even better, consider a self-cleaning litter box; they can be a lot pricier upfront, but my brother Evan and his family swear by them.)
4. Keep your pets clean, too!
Cats and dogs are generally pretty good at grooming; but anything you can do to help them out, especially when they really need a helping hand, will also keep pet odors in your home at bay.
This is especially true when your pet’s age, health, or breed make a little extra assistance crucial. Older pets or sick pets may not keep up their usual bathing routine, which could mean more oil/saliva buildup and consequently more stink over time. The same is true for longer-haired pets, for whom residues can get trapped in long hair, causing matting.
If your furry friend needs help with bathing, you can help them out with regular wipedowns/brushing, professional bathing, or even regular trims of that long fur. My brother Evan’s lower-dander Siberian Husky cats are great for his family’s allergies, but their fur gets so long that matting is a regular problem. As a result, his kitties get their fur shaved down several times a year to help avoid such mat formation in the first place.
Other pets may need bathing help because their life with you disrupts the natural grooming techniques they’ve developed in the wild. While we chose gerbils as pets in part because they are generally low on smelliness, the reality is that life with humans keeps these desert-dwelling creatures from getting the regular dust baths that remove excess oils from their fur. As a result, like other rodents, they required regular dust baths in volcanic ash to remove the excess oils from their fur; if it had been too long since their last bath, we could smell it!
The bottom line:
Clean bedding removes the slow buildup at the source, while better airflow stops those pet smells from establishing themselves in your home. Quick treatment of floors and little boxes keeps your home fresh without requiring heavy fragrance or constant deep cleans. These small, consistent actions are what leave both of you comfortable around each other.
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