We at Smell Fresh Arizona cannot emphasize this enough.  Never, ever used mothballs in closed living spaces.  This includes never, ever using mothballs in attics or crawlspaces under homes.

We’ve had two recent cases where homeowners used mothballs for rodent control.  One owner in North Phoenix opened the mothball bags and spread the mothballs throughout the attic to keep mice out.  Yikes!  Imagine trying to recover all of those mothballs after they’ve fallen into all of the little nooks and crannys in an attic!  In Arizona heat!

Another owner outside of Payson put 8 bags strategically in the crawlspace under his 1,200 sq.ft. home to keep skunks out.  The odor emitting from so much mothballs was overwhelming inside the home.  It would give you a headache in a matter of minutes.

The chemicals in mothballs release a very strong chemical odor.  This is how they deter rodents, but this also deters people from entering these properties.  These chemicals are suspected, if not already proven, cancer causing carcinogens.  Mothballs dissolve with time, but this also allows its chemicals to seep into the materials underneath them.  The odors released by mothballs are way more powerful than most people anticipate, and needless to say, most people severely regret ever having used them.  The removal and cleanup efforts to rid a property of odors can be very difficult, time consuming, and expensive.

Smell Fresh Arizona was able to rid the home in Payson of skunk odor AND the mothball odors.  We were also able to rid the home of odors emanating from the attic in North Phoenix.  How?  Trade secret and hard work.  As much as we appreciate the business, we would never want anyone to experience the after effects of using mothballs in their home.  It seriously makes the home unlivable until those odors are removed.

On occasion, we get customers who “think” they still smell something after a treatment. Upon inspection, and even with the noses of others who don’t know the history of a home, we can’t smell anything. So does it smell or not?

In case you’re not familiar with our story, the founding member of Smell Fresh Arizona had an issue with a smelly vehicle. Every time he’d open the door, he’d smell something fowl. Unfortunately for him, he developed a hypersensitivity to smells from his vehicle. This is known as Disosmia, which can be caused by mental conditions. In his case, he became conditioned to look for a smell every time he opened the door to his vehicle.

We see this sometimes with our customers. Once they’ve made up their mind that a property stinks, they consciously or unconsciously start looking for smells as soon as they enter the property. With time, this can go away after accepting that something doesn’t stink any more, but a good way to be sure is to look for feedback from others who have not been preconditioned to something smelling. Be sure not to jade their thoughts. If you tell them something use to stink, or to start looking for a smell, their minds can start fabricating or amplifying subtle odors.

We had a recent smelly house that we successfully treated, but the owner insisted the smell came back. We went back and didn’t smell anything, and the Real Estate Agent didn’t smell anything either. We offered to retreat the property at no charge, but the Agent’s wisdom prevailed. She suggested we give it another week as an active listing, and see if we got any smelly feedback from buyers who walked the home. After a week on the market, there were no complaints about the home smelling. Whereas prior to our treatment, every buyer who walked through the home complained about it smelling. So the foul odor was gone, and it just took a few other noses to help convince the owner that maybe the smell wasn’t there anymore.

Smell Fresh Arizona has been in business primarily to address odor issues in homes, businesses and autos.  It was a welcome surprise to us when we received a call from a distressed parent asking for our help.  Her family moved into a rental home that had been previously been occupied by a family that had indoor dogs.  She and her son were allergic to pet dander.

The home was cleaned very well, will no visible signs of pet hair anywhere in the home, but boy could they feel it!  Her poor son was breaking out in hives, rashes, and had difficulty breathing in the home.  Imagine having just moved out of one home and into another, unpacked, and tied into a lease… in a house that made you and your family sick!

It is well understood in the scientific community that our technology kills bacteria, mold, mildew, dust mites, and neutralizes pet dander and other allergens.  So we did not hesitate to help this family, and assured this mother that we could rid her home of existing allergens.

Helping families rid their homes of odors always gives us great satisfaction, but to know we did a little more for this family that was tied into a lease in a home that made them sick was especially rewarding.  Please share are services with others you may know who are allergy sufferers moving into another home.  We can sterilize their home before move in, and make it allergen free.

As you can imagine, we get lots of calls for various odor issues.  This business was started by a frustrated consumer who was at his wits end and felt he exhausted all available resources to remove an odor.

No one wants to pay money to treat for odor removal if the source is not dealt with or removed.  Most of business is to treat a property after a smoker or pet owner has moved out.  So the odor source is gone.  We can go in and treat a property to “kill” the residual odor sources left behind.  The smoker or pets are gone, and now the odors are permanently gone. But what about other odors?

We’ve recently noticed a trend of service calls to treat raised properties.  That is to say there is a crawl space under the property.  This is common with older homes built before the 50’s, manufactured/mobile homes, hillside homes, and other properties.  This increase in service calls came with the rainy season.  What we noticed with many of these properties, is that the current or previous owners blocked all or some of the airways under the home.

So Smell Fresh Arizona, LLC. does not just blindly treat properties.  We try to identify the odor sources first to make sure there is not a constant odor source in the property that would return an odor after our treatment.  If we identify that the odor source will persist after our treatment, we let the property owner know so they can make an informed decision about how to proceed.  In the case of these raised homes, we helped the homeowners identify an issue with not having adequate ventilation under their home.  This ventilation is important to help keep gases from accumulating under the home and to help dry out moisture.  Moisture build up can encourage mold growth, which creates a musty odor.  These homeowners were able to correct the ventilation issues with their homes instead of spending money unnecessarily on an odor removal treatment with the cause would remain.

There are other instances where the property owner knows the source would remain, and it’s just a known issue they intend to live with.  A good example of this would be restaurants.  Some restaurants build up odors from cooking foods, and of course the odors will come back as long as the restaurant stays in business.  For these clients, we set up a recurring treatment plan to keep odors at bay, and help these businesses maintain a customer friendly environment.

So while we don’t earn everyone’s business, it’s our goal to earn everyone’s trust.

Yes, ozone removes marijuana odors just like tobacco odors.  Smell Fresh Arizona, LLC has successfully removed marijuana odors from homes, apartments, and automobiles.

Strangely enough, we still come across homes that have been listed for sale or rent that have odors in them.  We can only imagine that’s because they are unaware of our services, and feel they’ve exhausted all efforts to get rid of the smell.

You know what they say about first impressions?  Most buyers or renters turn right around and move on to the next home after they smell tobacco or pet odors… and they are not coming back!  …at any price!

We often get called after a home has sat on the market for a while, unable to be sold or rented.  Sadly for Agents, this can unfairly reflect poorly on the Agent.  Agents always look like a hero when a home sells quickly for top dollar, but that’s hard to do with a house that stinks.

We recently treated a home for tobacco odor after it sat on the market for over 120 days.  It was a beautifully remodeled home, but it stunk!  Imagine going through the troubles of spending thousands of dollars and lots of hard work to replace flooring, remodel bathrooms and kitchens, and repaint the entire home… only to find that the home still smells.  It doesn’t matter how good the home looks if it stinks.  After 120 days on the market, imagine how many buyers passed through that home.  Imagine how many first impressions were ruined by a stinky house.

If you are an Agent reading this, don’t let a stinky home go on the market before one of our treatments.  Let your sellers know this is a must to get top dollar for their home, and to get their home sold as quickly as possible.

Oh ya, about that home that sat on the market for over 120 days… it received an offer under a week after we wrapped up our treatment.

Yes, we treat homes for kitchen fires!

Ever forget something on the stove?  Ever leave a pot of soup or stew on the stove and leave for the day, only to come back to find the pot out of water, and your house full of smoke.

That smoke or fire smell is strong and permeates everything and everywhere throughout the house.  Good luck trying to get the smell of smoke out of your home.  There are a hundred and one suggestions on how to get the smell out:  boiling onions, boiling cinnamon,  cleaning with vinegar, setting out coffee beans, setting out charcoal filters, wiping down all your walls and furniture, etc…

Because the smell transferred from smoke that filled your home, and stuck to everything in your home, it’s almost impossible and overwhelming to try and clean everything.  Even if you do, you’ll likely find that your home still smells of smoke.

Ever here of the expression, “fight fire with fire”?  When to remedy the smell of smoke, try ozone.  The smell of smoke spread throughout your home with the smoke in the form of a gas.  Because it was in a gas state, it spread through the air in your entire home.  Ozone in a gaseous state will do the same thing.  It will find all of the same spaces that the smoke found, and oxygenate the smoke deposits thereby neutralizing them.

You might think to try and save a few bucks by buying a small machine safe for home use, but there are two major problems with this idea.  First, these machines don’t have enough output or strength to attack the problem.  It could take months, or even years before you get the smell out using one of these machines.  Secondly, despite the fact that some of these vendors claim their machines are safe to run in occupied spaces, ozone is not safe to breathe.  Ozone generators should never be ran in occupied spaces.

Even a relatively “high output” machine that you can rent isn’t enough.  These machines usually output about 3 grams/hour of ozone.  Smell Fresh Arizona, LLC can attack an odor problem in a home with out 100 grams/hour of ozone.  Shock and awe!  We can attack a problem with 33x the potency of a rental machine.  This means a faster and more thorough job for you, so you can start enjoying your home again without the awful house fire smoke smell in it.

Unfortunately, we often get called for odor removal AFTER people have tried to remove or cover up the odor during a remodel.  A lot of people buy smelly homes with pet or tobacco odor, and think that by painting over the smell and putting in new flooring, the odor will go away.

When this doesn’t work, they call us.  Let’s start with why you can’t just cover up the odor.  Tobacco odors are caused by tar residue throughout the home.  As cigarette or cigar smoke spreads to every inch of the home, it carries tobacco tar with it, and this tar gets deposited all over the walls, ceilings, flooring and into the air conditioning duct work.  By Pet urine will soak into sheet rock and through flooring into the concrete.  Pet urine and dander includes bacteria that continue to live and generate odors.  When you try to paint over tobacco tar, and put new flooring over concrete embedded with odor causing deposits, you are just covering up these sources with porous materials.  In other words, the odors will just seep right through the paint and new flooring causing your home to continue to stink.

Ideally, you would remove the flooring to expose the bare concrete.  Then clean all of the walls and flooring with a strong detergent.  Some people advise against bleach or ammonia based products.  There are enzyme based products that are designed to kill odor causing bacteria.  These are good options.

An ozone shock treatment would be the next step.  We would go in after flooring is removed and a good cleaning throughout, but before new paint and flooring.  This way, all of the odor causing sources are fully exposed to our ozone gas.  This gives us an uninhibited path to kill and neutralize the problem.

Before you paint with your favorite colors, a good sealing primer such as Kilz is a good idea to seal in any possible remaining residues.

What if I’ve already painted and installed new flooring?

No problem.  Ideally, we would treat a home before the new paint and flooring are installed.  However, we have successfully treated a number of homes AFTER remodel.  Because our treatment is in the form of a gas, we will reach every square inch of a  home to kill and neutralize odor causing sources.  The ozone gas will penetrate the new paint and flooring.  So don’t be discouraged, and give us a call today if you have a smelly problem.

The short answer is: Nothing noticeable.

Ozone is always present in the air we breathe. It occurs in nature as a result of lightning strikes and other chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the presence of sunlight. Emissions from industrial facilities and electric utilities, motor vehicle exhaust, gasoline vapors, and chemical solvents are some of the major sources of NOx and VOC.

Good Ozone

Called stratospheric ozone, good ozone occurs naturally in the upper atmosphere, where it forms a protective layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. ozone.

Bad Ozone

Tropospheric, or ground level ozone, is not emitted directly into the air, but is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). This happens when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and other sources chemically react in the presence of sunlight. Ozone at ground level is a harmful air pollutant, because of its effects on people and the environment, and it is the main ingredient in “smog.”

While our treatment does produce ground level ozone, it is no more a source of pollution than other common home maintenance activities such as using gas powered mowers and weed-eaters; driving your gas powered vehicle to the hardware store; or even using electric powered tools, as most of the electricity we consume results in the generation of pollutants.

Ground level ozone can be harmful as an irritant to people, pets, and plants. It also degrades other natural materials such as rubbers, woods, and leathers. However, given that ozone is always present in the air, it is impossible to attribute any harmful effects as a result of one of our treatments. So to avoid using our service for fear of harmful affects, would be like avoiding mowing your lawn with a powered lawn mower for the same reason.

Ozone is second only to fluorine as the most powerful oxidant in the world. It’s the most powerful natural air and water sanitizer available. It’s used by hospitals, law and fire departments, and in locker rooms around the world. So if you have bacterial, virus, or odor concerns, why wouldn’t you use it?

Source: www.epa.gov

Why didn’t we think of this?

We recently got a request to treat a home for germs. Some home buyers were buying a resale home, and wanted an ozone shock treatment to ensure the home didn’t have any germs left behind from the previous owners. They were moving into a home with their small children, and the previous owners had indoor pets.

We generally treat homes for odor removal, but our same technology is commonly used to treat hospital rooms and locker rooms to kill germs. It’s also great to kill allergens.

So if you are a germophobe having germophobia, give us a call, and we can treat that used home or car you are buying.

Disclaimer: We cannot guarantee the elimination of germs for liability reasons. For one, we are not a remediation company, nor do we wish to be categorized as one. Secondly, new germs could be introduced to any space a day after treatment, with no way to prove when a germ was introduced to a space. We are a cleaning service. So, do your own homework on our technology and decide for yourself its effectiveness as a germ and allergen killer. Then give us a call when you are ready to clean the air in that used home or car.