everything is on fire forever

September 3, 2015 8:15 AM

There was a fire in my building 2 weeks ago and everything is so smelly, the smelliest, the most smelly.

The management had professional cleaners come in and scrub down my walls and floors and whatnot. I'm taking care of the rest of my belongings, using the same industrial cleaning solution (they helpfully and wonderfully left me a few gallon jugs). BUT EVERYTHING STILL STINKS WHERE IS STINK WHY IS HAPPEN.

I have fire damage in both bedrooms, both of which are currently being ripped out and redone. I assume a good amount of the stink is coming from the burnt exposed bits in those rooms, but I still have stink when those rooms are closed off. I replaced the air conditioners that were unfortunately running and getting stinky throughout the entire fire, and it has definitely helped, but it's not enough.

Another issue is still having no windows, so some of the stink is certainly coming up from the apartment below, which is a giant cinder also with no windows; it's not even being demolished yet as the landlords have opted to focus on the habitable apartments first. I'm cleaning inside cabinets and all my dishes and whatnot but I still get whiffs of stink that are hard to pinpoint. I've been sniffing my walls and floors and cabinets and spot cleaning wherever I find stink. I've done 6 loads of laundry and dropped off a ton of dry cleaning but I can't really do any more until the construction in the bedrooms is finished because I have nowhere to store my clean stuff, and hauling it to my storage unit seems like an unbearable ordeal in 95 degree heat and with a concussion. (it has been a bad week)

Do I need to hire another team of professional fire destinkers who will concentrate on my (furniture, household goods, etc) stuff? Do I need to have them go over everything the original cleaners did? Can I assume the smell will abate further when I have windows? Should I rent a HEPA filter for the month? Will that even make a difference if I have no goddamn windows? Is the stink being held within my books? How the hell do I clean 1000 books. cry

I didn't have renters insurance (but i do now and so should you) but paying for whatever services are needed isn't an issue.

also give me your thoughts and speculations: what god did i anger and how do i appease them

posted by poffin boffin to Home & Garden (21 answers total)

I think I read (here, probably) that ozone generators are how the professionals get rid of smoke smell. Can you look into renting that instead?

Super sorry this happened to you (and glad you are OK). It sounds super sucky.
posted by spelunkingplato at 8:21 AM on September 3, 2015

Look for fire restoration contractors in your neighborhood. They will send out a contractor or an estimator for free. You may want to get multiple opinions. Be prepared for bad news, though. Smoke damage is very nearly impossible to get rid of without completely demoing or soda blasting the interior. Guess it depends on the extent of smoke damage, though. A fire restoration contractor is your best bet for an educated opinion.
posted by zagyzebra at 8:32 AM on September 3, 2015

I think you are correct about the burnt parts and no windows etc. I think you need to wait until that is remedied before spending money on destinking. I would ask the landlord to redo your apartment when they are finished with removal.
posted by AugustWest at 8:36 AM on September 3, 2015

Yeah, they plan to repaint walls and ceilings once the construction is done, but I think only in the three affected rooms (br1, br2, bath). I guess I should ask for a full repaint of all painted surfaces? They're being remarkably agreeable to all my demands, which so far have just been "i dont want to pay rent until the apartment looks/smells/works like it did the day before the fire" and "i need a new smoke alarm i guess".
posted by poffin boffin at 8:43 AM on September 3, 2015

Bad news - I had an apartment fire in March, and it was stinky for basically ever. I was elsewhere for about eight weeks while my landlord hired cleaners, repainted, ran a hepa filter, etc., and when I moved back in there was still a suspicious smell in the kitchen cabinets.
posted by zeptoweasel at 8:55 AM on September 3, 2015

Ugh that sucks, I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Good thing it wasn't much worse, I guess? (meh.)

There are definitely advantages to hiring a ServPro kind of company to just make all of the problems go away, but if your landlord is already demo-ing the sites of actual damage, and the bulk of the problem is the downstairs apartment, there's maybe not That much more they can do? Couldn't hurt to get an estimate though.

Basically until you have windows and the apartment below is less of a smoldering cinderpile, there's probably going to be some stink :(

RE: laundry and dry cleaning: you might want to buy some rubbermaids and/or some of those vacuum-sealer packs for the clean stuff--it'll make for less volume to store and keep any lingering stink off of it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:57 AM on September 3, 2015

So I guess my actual advice is to leave cabinets and closets open to air out?
posted by zeptoweasel at 8:57 AM on September 3, 2015

The smell of fire is very difficult to eradicate. Smoke penetrates everything. Yes, you should ask the landlord to have absolutely every surface and piece of fabric cleaned thoroughly. Any burnt bits that are not removed from the building will create smells for many years, esp. in any kind of damp weather.
posted by theora55 at 9:10 AM on September 3, 2015

I haven't tried this to remove fire odors, but I have had good luck getting rid of other smells in my apartment by using ground coffee. I just put it out in tupperwares (no lid) in various places (on counters, in closets, in cabinets), and it really did seem to help.

Based on a quick google search it does seem like other people have had some success using the coffee ground method for fire odor. For example, it's mentioned here. You might find some of the other stuff mentioned in that post helpful as well, although they were dealing with a smaller scale kitchen fire.

I know baking soda is sometimes used for this too (like in the fridge), but coffee grounds have worked better for me.

(I had some ground coffee that expired before I had a chance to use it, so I used that. If you drink coffee regularly and don't want to waste perfectly good coffee grounds, you might be able to use used coffee grounds, but I haven't tried that personally.)
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:19 AM on September 3, 2015

This sucks, I'm so sorry.

I had nice clothes that were exposed to smoke (fire was in the unit below) and I took them to a dryer that did an ozone cleaning, which is apparently the only thing that will remove the smell.
posted by radioamy at 10:22 AM on September 3, 2015

With a building fire in my apartment building (2 floors down) airing everything out helped the most. At some local hardware stores you can rent "blowers" (my local ghetto hardware store a few blocks over had one for rent) that they use to dry out water damage. These are basically hardcore fans. I used one of those for a few hours when I first got back home to SUPERCHARGE air circulation out of your apartment. My building also had one going at the top of the stairs pointing down the stairs to try to get air moving in the middle of the building. (it was loud, but seemed to work). I don't think a Hepa filter is going to help enough with the "heavy smoke" smell.

I washed down hard surfaces (looks like you've got that covered), and washed as much of my couch as I could. (the covers on the cushions got drycleaned). I kept windows open for a good 2-3 weeks, with fans in the windows creating a long tunnel of fresh air coming in during the day. That definitely helped the most. I also just got rid of any small rugs and towels, and got new ones from Ikea.

For the first few months, you could smell the smoke in odd corners, but by 2-3months you definitely couldn't anymore.

If you have the means, have someone else do the next round of household cleaning. They'll be methodical about it, and since they are fresh to the smoke smell, should be able to pinpoint it a bit better.
posted by larthegreat at 10:57 AM on September 3, 2015

How the hell do I clean 1000 books

Find a way to enclose the books with some open pans of dry baking soda. You want to maximize the exposed area of baking soda, but keep it contained. Change the baking soda every day.

If the books are still on shelves where they were when the smoke got in, try draping plastic sheeting over the shelves and baking soda. You could also put the books in big plastic storage bins with pans or plates of baking soda on top of them. Don't pack them like you would for moving, make stacks with gaps to allow room for air to circulate, and shift the books around each time you change the baking soda.

Some people swear by coffee grounds instead, but I don't care for having everything smell like coffee grounds.
posted by yohko at 11:06 AM on September 3, 2015

If it were me, I'd spend the $$ to buy one or two room air filters (HEPA) and run them 24 hours for a number of days. They would probably help significantly, but not remove the odor entirely.
posted by amtho at 11:56 AM on September 3, 2015

Jumping on lsm's coffee grounds suggestion, if you're willing to use used coffee grounds and deal with a bit of mess, go to your nearest Starbucks and ask if they have "grounds for your garden." Free, depending on your local Sbux you may get from 1lb to one 5 gallon bucket's worth.

Grounds will be wet; don't know how much that impacts their deodorizing capabilities.
posted by deludingmyself at 12:18 PM on September 3, 2015

Coffee in general is one of my worst migraine triggers, even worse than the smell of cigarette smoke or ripening bananas, alas. Burning my house to the ground would be better.

I had 3 of those huge commercial blowers running 24h/d in my house for 10 days and it definitely made a big difference. The emergency cleaners also sprayed some kind of ultra mega febreze that did something magical to the air but unfortunately left behind a crazy floral stink that is only now just fading. We had about a dozen of those massive fans all over the building, but right now they're just in the two water damaged apartments below.

My washable clothes are doing well with a double cold wash followed by a low heat spin dry, and the stink doesn't come back even when stuff gets sweaty. Some of my high tech gym stuff seems to be unfixable, which sucks because it was the most expensive.

HOWEVER the contractors have finished the wall repair in one of the bedrooms and the smell is easily halved, so I have great optimism for the rest of the work's completion making a big difference.

Could I maybe, potentially, somehow, idek, rig a clean room tent kind of thing in my second bedroom and fill it with my books and one of those ozone air cleaner things? For like a week? Is this a thing sane humans do?
posted by poffin boffin at 12:56 PM on September 3, 2015

First off, glad you're ok.

Before we lived together, the unit immediately beside Mr. Conspiracy's apartment was essentially gutted by fire. His unit was undamaged by the fire itself (thanks, fire codes!), but the outcome for his unit was a hell of a lot of smoke damage.

There was one injury in the fire, a firefighter who was very badly scratched by the cat of the neighbour on the other side when he went it to rescue it. The ungrateful beast made it out fine, though.

Anyway, on topic:

Do I need to hire another team of professional fire destinkers who will concentrate on my (furniture, household goods, etc) stuff? Do I need to have them go over everything the original cleaners did? Can I assume the smell will abate further when I have windows?

Highly advisable.

So, we did the following:

- Every single surface and item in his place was professionally cleaned by fire restorer types
- The mattress was professionally cleaned by the cleaners. Whatever they did, it got rid of the smell
- Every stitch of clothing, bedding, etc was dry cleaned (the cleaning firm handled this, so may have been ozone, dunno). Everything came back fresh as a daisy.

After he was able to move back in (I think the process was like six to eight weeks, and included the gutting and restoration of the neighbouring unit), there was still the occasional whiff of smoke in damp weather when all the windows were closed. Kind of a "ghosts of fires past" kind of thing, nothing strong. That lasted for a few months and eventually went away.

Can't really advise on the books, though. He can't see, so therefore owned very few books at the time of the fire, aside from a few souvenir-type things.

But also - until the unit that had the fire is remediated, it might be better to hold off on the gold-standard level cleaning, since some of what you're experiencing is probably part of that.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:59 PM on September 3, 2015

Oh, will also note: when he cleared out of his place to wait out the restoration/cleaning, he of course took a bunch of clothes with him.

A regular run through washer and dryer got rid of the smoke smell that those clothes had.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:01 PM on September 3, 2015

What if you scanned the barcodes of each book, put them on an Amazon wish list, and ordered new ones? Would your insurance cover that? Complete guess, but worth asking about maybe.
posted by oceanjesse at 3:49 PM on September 3, 2015

Possibly minor in the grand scheme of things, but change out all your light bulbs. That smoke-grease film that accumulated on them during the fire releases a scent every time you turn on a lamp.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:50 PM on September 3, 2015

My in laws had a house fire and they have a lot of books. They did everything they could to clean them and they now can't be smelled more than say 30cm away. But you cannot read them. The fire stink is too overwhelming e when you open them up. This is ten years later in a completely different house. I'm sorry, but I think you might need to replace your books.
posted by lollusc at 5:07 PM on September 3, 2015

UPDATE walls are done and painting is happening and the smell is SO MUCH BETTER hooray. Books mostly seem okay now that shelves have been scrubbed. I still need windows so I guess right now my main concern is arguing with my landlord over whether or not it is "habitable" without access to the fire escape.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2015