If you have a family, then sometimes you have people getting sick in your home. Since back-to-school season is in full swing, and we’re staring down flu season too, I thought I’d share my trick for getting rid of that awful smell that can result from someone being sick with a stomach flu in your home. Right now in our home we have an 11 year old and an almost-3 year old so we definitely have our fair share of incidents. Thankfully, we don’t get the stomach flu ripping through our whole household quite as often as some, but sometimes one person eats something that doesn’t agree with them. Or little Jack drinks too much milk right before bed time. Things happen.
Let me just tell you, when Kennedy, our 11 year old, was maybe 18 months old, she was such a champ at being sick. She would run for the toilet and just never miss. She had that thing figured out. Now with Jack, at almost 3, he just cries to sit on mommy’s lap and then proceeds to be sick all over the place. I try to reach for his trash can, but it never seems to work out. If you’ve ever heard anyone talk about the differences between raising little girls and little boys, they were so right.
Thankfully, I’ve at least learned to deal with one part of it pretty well, and that’s when someone (usually Jack) is sick all over the place in his room. Here’s what to do when you face this fairly disgusting situation!
OK, first of all, you have to clean everything up. There’s no escaping that. Grab a big roll of paper towels, and a spray bottle with water and vinegar and maybe a bit of dish soap in it, and a big trash can. Just get in there and do it like you’ve probably had to do many times before as a parent. 🙂
Once all of the “debris” is cleared away, you’re still going to be stuck with that lingering smell in the air (and maybe the carpet) that lets you know that something no-so-healthy went down, so here’s what you do about that:
Grab yourself a bottle of lavender essential oil, some baking soda, and a big old towel. Make sure you keep a few old towels in your cleaning supply area just for big clean-up jobs like when someone drops an entire glass of juice… or for times like this!
Next, sprinkle a very generous amount of baking soda over the area where the sickness happened.
Grab your towel and fold it so it’s a shape and size that will cover the area that you just sprinkled. Drop about 20 or so drops of the lavender oil directly onto the towel. Don’t put the oil directly on your rug or upholstery because you’ll end up with little oil splatters.
Flip the towel over so the surface that you dripped the oil onto is directly in contact with your baking soda-d area.
Now leave it there!
You can leave it for a few hours or even all day if you like. The baking soda and lavender will completely get rid of that smell and lavender oil is even said to have disinfecting properties, which is pretty neat at a time like this. 🙂
When you’re ready, lift the towel up and throw it in the wash. Vacuum the baking soda away and your room will smell as good as new! This is the vacuum that I have and I love it.
I do this every single time we have a sickness incident around here now and it really works. Definitely put this trick to use the next time you find yourself taking care of a little flu patient in your house!
Other ideas that you might find handy!
- Things around the house that you should sanitize regularly during flu season
- Homemade All-Natural Cough Syrup
- How to mop your floors the right way
- How to properly spot clean upholstery
- How to get rid of really stubborn carpet stains
- How to keep your home from being taken over by pet fur
- How to be one of those people who always have a clean car
- The Creek Line House homekeeping tips and tricks archives
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.