that old car smell

so my car freaking REEKS!

I cannot for the freaking life of me find the d*mn origins of this smell, which seems to be a combination of feet, dairy and mold.

It’s been this way since Friday night. And this morning I sprayed “after the rain”  air freshener (which I stole borrowed from my roommate) everywhere, including the trunk. but now it just smells like feet, dairy, mold AND whatever the heck after the rain smells like.

I have cleaned out EVERY POSSIBLE source and now plan to wait until I get paid and then take it to whoever the heck specializes in these types of things.

The only good news is that you kinda get used to it about 8 minutes in, so all I usually have to do is breathe only when necessary for the first three miles or so and I’m good to go.

This is not the first time i’ve had car smell issues. When I first got my car my mom was all “let me buy you some bleach and then transport said bleach back to your apartment via the trunk of your car” and i was all “what could go wrong?! Sure!”

and then the next day I was all “hmm, my car seems to smell like an over-chlorinated swimming pool. that’s weird” and I realized the bleach had spilled all over my trunk.

and my car smelled like a public pool for about a year-and-a-half to two years depending on who you ask. true story.

and when my sister asked which i thought was worse, the bleach or the mixture of feet, dairy and mold, i have to say, i went with the bleach feet, dairy, and mold — at least with the bleach people thought i was just supa clean, as opposed to supa smelly.

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Comments

  1. Wow. My car just starting smelling, too. But it smells like a rotting banana. I thought it was the empty cans and bottles I hadn’t gotten around to returning, but they’re now returned. And I sprayed it too. However, I’m too cold to clean it out.

  2. Did you check under all the seats and stuff? I remember Ryan’s car was starting to smell like that sort of, too … until we found some odd empty little tray with some sort of meat by-product in it, that maybe friends in the backseat had accidentally stored underneath the floorboards because they couldn’t get around to throwing it out. it was dis-gus-ting.

  3. Take a look at your post from Febuary 27th, 2008. You had a similar problem back then. My suggestion is to take it to a body shop. They could recommend the right detailing for your car.

  4. Hi Crystal,

    If you checked your entire car, it could be your vents. Bacteria and such can accumulate within the vents, a/c, heater areas and it isn’t a place you can clean by yourself. I know that some dealerships offer a mist service that can disinfect your vent systems if you are convinced that you have searched and cleaned every other surface in your car.

    Take care,
    Chuck
    Diana’s Fiance

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