Help me quell this smell!

October 5, 2005 7:12 AM

How do I get rid of the smell of rotten onions?

I recently opened a drawer in my kitchen to find that the bag of onions had melted. Of course I mean that they went bad and produced the rotten onion liquid. This liquid caused a mighty stink and I don't know how to get rid of the smell. I cleaned it up with some spray cleaner and currently the bottom of the drawer is covered in baking soda. And yet the smell lingers on. Anyone have any suggestions for egtting rid of this smell? It's killing me!

Also, I had potatoes in the drawer with the onion. Is there some sort of "don't store potatoes and onions together" rule I should have known about? My friend mentioned something to that effect. Anyone know?

posted by bDiddy to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

take the drawer out of it's slides and place it outside in direct sunlight for a few days. this helps kill lots of odors.
posted by cosmicbandito at 7:16 AM on October 5, 2005

Baking soda. Scrub it with a damp sponge and baking soda. Rinse, repeat.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:41 AM on October 5, 2005

Take the drawer out and soak it in the sink with water and white vinegar. Vinegar gets odors out of plastics, so if you have smelly Tupperware or Nalgene bottles sitting around, you can use this trick on them too.
posted by bonheur at 8:00 AM on October 5, 2005

I 2nd the vinegar suggestion. Great stuff.
posted by phearlez at 9:08 AM on October 5, 2005

How do you get rid of the nasty vinegar smell?

Sun sounds like the best bet to me. I'm amazed at what a couple hours of sun can do to nasty smells and sometimes stains.
posted by Goofyy at 9:44 AM on October 5, 2005

Never store potatoes and onions together.
posted by Serena at 10:27 AM on October 5, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I am going to try vinegar as soon as I get home. The nasty vinegar smell will be like roses compared to the smell in my drawer right now. (I am going to be sure to clean out the baking soda first!) I'm sure the smell of the vinegar will leave soon enough. And if not, I'll leave it outside. I just don't have a lot of room outside to put a drawer, so that may have to wait a bit.

What about something liek OxyClean? Anyone have experience with that? Can that remove odors?
posted by bDiddy at 10:51 AM on October 5, 2005

Vinegar will do the trick and will also remove normal onion odor from cutting boards, knives, hands, etc.
posted by Lynsey at 12:34 PM on October 5, 2005

OxyClean is likely hydrogen peroxide. Dilute chlorine bleach (10:1) should also do the trick--then put it in the sun for an hour. Works great on wooden cutting boards.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:14 PM on October 5, 2005

I second WGP - I use bleach for these kinds of things. A good rinse and exposure to light and air will neutralize the bleach afterwards.
posted by nanojath at 12:11 AM on October 6, 2005