When I invite a friend over, I go into a bit of a cleaning frenzy. I vacuum and dust and clean the bathroom… but I also brush the couches and pick mud out of the door tracks. I fuss over the various spots that various dogs have left on the carpet, hoping to somehow hide them with clever lighting or furniture movements.
The only person who’s ever commented on or obsessed over the smell, however, is me. I have two big dogs and I worry that my apartment is stinky because of them. (I have the same worry about my car, too.)
I don’t have the time or energy to vacuum up dog hair every day. I’m not as diligent about dusting as I could be. But I do have a few cleaning tricks that might be useful for other pet owners!
- Pet hair sticks to upholstery like white on rice, right? A sticky-tape lint roller is a good way to get the pet hair off… but if you don’t have one handy, you’re not stuck with extra-fuzzy couches. I use my shedding blade (also known as a grooming loop) to scrape the hair into easy-to-pick piles.
- Febreeze is my friend. After I brush and vacuum the couches, I’ll spray them down with Febreeze to freshen things up. I also spray the spots where the dogs tend to spend the most time — like in front of the sliding glass door to watch the world go by.
- Sometimes the exhaust from the vacuum doesn’t smell so fresh, either. One trick that I love for bagless vacuums is to take a cotton ball and add a few drops of your favorite essential oils. Put the cotton ball in the canister and the vac will blow out scented air while you clean.
- Keep up on the dog grooming! If you don’t want your house to smell, then you need to start at the stink-source! With my dogs, Moose is the one who needs baths more frequently — after two months or so, he starts to get kind of oily and smelly again. Lally can go much longer without a bath.