House Whiff

My house has a smell. It is not a good smell. It is not necessarily a bad smell, either, but it's certainly more bad than good. When I am home all day, I don't notice it, but then when we are out somewhere, I will catch a whiff of it on our clothes. Or when I come home after having been gone for a day or two, the smell irritates the hell out of me for the hour or two it takes for my nose to grow accustomed to it again. I go around sniffing -- sniffing walls, carpets, closets, ductwork, trying to find the source. I end up feeling discouraged . . . and just a little high from all the house huffing.

The smell does not belong to us. We did not create it; we just paid for it. It should have been listed as chattel on our sales contract along with the fridge and the broken ceiling fan.

When our realtor first showed us the house, she said, "I think you'll like this one. And smell it -- it's clean!" She sniffed deeply and appeared to be in ecstasy, as if she were smelling fresh-baked bread or her lover's pheromones.

Every house has a smell, of course. My husband calls it house whiff. I don't mind house whiff in other people's houses, and I don't mind my own house whiff in my own house. Everyone should have the right to create his or her own house whiff. Living in the whiff of strangers, on the other hand, is not so fun.

Just as with pheromones, the beauty of the house whiff is in the nose of the beholder. When the realtor bragged on the smell, I made a mental note that the smell I was smelling was from cleaning supplies and could be gotten rid of with alternative cleaning supplies.

Nothing has worked, however. What we are smelling here is not the smell of clean. It is the smell of whiff. Permanent whiff.

I hold out hope that replacing the carpet will help. However, we have two very small children right now, and new carpet would be an absolutely ridiculous investment. My nose is begging me to throw that money away. "Enough is enough!" my nostrils are crying.

I am practical, though. I am frugal. And yet I am not without empathy. So I shall appease my nose with an old trick. I found out not too long ago that one cannot smell while smiling.

I am breaking out the perma-grin. No, folks, this is not a grimace. This is happiness. Pure happiness.