Burned Plastic - HELP!

My son recently burned pizza in our microwave. I opened all of the windows and let the house air out and we were going away for the weekend. When we returned the same smell was still in the house two days later. My husband reminded me of our Living Air Purifier. I hadn't used it in our home because asthma symptoms haven't been as bad since we moved to Utah but I turned it on that night. The next morning the smell was completely gone. The microwave still smells when we use it but is gradually becoming less and I turn on the air purifier to remove it from the rest of the house. I know they are expensive and it did work. As for your oven unless you get all of the plastic out I don't know if that smell will go away. It will take a lot of careful scraping as the plastic normally comes off only when it is hot and you can scrape it off. I think they used the Living Air Purifiers during 9-11 in the Pentagon to help with the smoke damage. They are made by a company called EcoQuest. Before purchasing you could try to continue to air the house out. Wash every cloth item to remove the smell and try cleaning your carpets because they may have some smoke damage. I even think their our companies that come in after home fires to deal with smoke damage. You may want to call one of them and see if they can help. Weigh the cost and see which may work best for you. Hang in there, mistakes happen; don't let it get you down. Good luck!

Hi J.,

I have a girlfriend who flips houses and one of the homes she purchased was in such bad shape that the home inspector said it was like she was buying a crack house. It stank from cigarette smoke, cat urine - the first time I walked in it bowled me over and I hightailed it out of there. Bottom line is that she rented an ionizing machine to clean the air (like the ones in the Sharper Image catalog). It really worked. Who knew?!

Good luck!

Warmly,
S.
Cultural Care Au Pair
www.culturalcare.com

Burned plastic can indeed cause a terrible, smelly mess, but you already know that. Getting the smell out of the fabrics is not so hard, simply launder the shirts and hang them outside in the sunshine. The drapes can be either laundered or dry cleaned depending on the fabric.
Thank goodness there is a high quality, powerful steam cleaner that can take care of the smoke on your brick walls and in the oven. I know this because I have had a similar experience in my own home. It was on a smaller scale than your problem, but it proved to me how powerful and effective my steam cleaner really can be. My husband decided that he needed to soften some black shoe polish that had hardened in the can. He put it into our toaster oven and set it on the "toast" setting. Next thing he knew the oven looked like it was on fire. Black smoke everywhere. Inside and outside, my new stainless toaster oven was black.
We have owned a Sargent Steam cleaner for 15 years and this is not the first time it has "saved our bacon," however, those are stories for another day.
We placed a soft brush onto the end of the steam nozzle, rubbed a little hand soap onto the brush and steamed the whole mess away. All that we needed to make the toaster oven look like new again was the steam cleaner, hand soap and paper towels. You could clean up your oven exactly the same way.
There is a large attachment that allows you to clip a cloth on it. Rub some hand soap on the cloth and steam the walls.
You can learn all about my favorite tool in the whole wide world at:
www.sargentsteam.com.
I hope you get your problem solved.
J. Mathie

We had a burnt popcorn smell in our microwave that made everything smell. I washed what I could, put febreze on furniture that couldn't be laundered and sprayed air freshner. I do have to say that the smell took several days if not up to a week to completely dissapate. I would think you could salvage most everything just by cleaning everything as you normally would and plug in some air freshners until the smell completely dissapears.

Good Luck...vinegar works well on a lot of surfaces or just use a regular oven cleaner in the oven.

Vinegar is great at taking scents out of the air. Every time I make something that scents the whole house, I leave out a bowl of vinegar. When we get up the next morning the scent is gone.

Recently we had guests over and while we were out to dinner their dog knocked over a reading lamp that was on. It melted the shade and started burning the carpet. The smell was atrocious. I opened the doors to air out the house, turned on fans, etc. Nothing worked. I put a bowl of vinegar on a shelf above that area. The next morning the smell was gone.

good luck!

I would try washing the clothes, and adding vinegar to the rinse water, and rinsing an extra time with more vinegar. I would dry clean the drapes, or at least hang them outside to air out. Wipe down surfaces with a vinegar/water mix, and set out bowls or saucers of vinegar--it will help absorb the smell.

Another big thing you can do is air out the house--open windows or doors, turn on bathroom or kitchen hood fans, and let some fresh air in. Also, there are solid air fresheners (I think the brand is citrus magic) that do a great job absorbing smoke smells.

We had a fire in our fireplace with the flue closed awhile back.... and these measures took care of the smell. It took a couple days, but they worked!

Good luck!

Another really great air freshner you could try is called Odor Out and is made by Scentsy Wickless Candles. It has kind of a Febreeze like smell and is amazing at helping to get rid of almost any smell. You can check it out at www.scentsy.com/dklein. I'm not sure where you live, but I could get some to you fairly quickly if you'd like to give it a try.

The only thing I can think of is swabbing everything down with a vinegar solution (1 part vinegar to 5 parts water and if its greasy at all ad a few drops of dishwashing detergent). Wash/dry clean the drapes, and wash the clothes normally. If the oven comes clean, it should be fine, if there is residual plastic, maybe not. Use a straight razor to help get all the drippings up.

And to hopefully help you feel better: One Thanksgiving a while back when our house was still new to us I invited a few friends over to eat some turkey with us. I double bagged the turkey in those 'cooking bags' and put the whole shebang into a broiler pan. The turkey cooked up beautifully (and quickly). We went to take the pan out of the oven, and since the turkey was exceptionally juicy and the broiler pan had nearly no sides on it, we ran into trouble fast. The turkey bag slopped over the side, got caught on the wire rack and tore open in the blink of an eye. Greasy, icky turkey juice drailed all over the bottom of the oven.

Well, its a self clean oven right? I put the oven on self clean, locked it closed and went about my business trying to salvage some gravy and let the turkey rest. 15 minutes later the oven door blew open as if a bomb went off. Yes, I ignited all the lovely turkey leavings and nearly set the entire kitchen on fire. Dumb, yes. Catastrophic, no. The oven, once cleaned by hand the proper way, worked just fine for many years. And I still make turkey!

And remember, its OK for people to see dirty gloves, its a sign you're human and get things done. HTH and GL!!!!!

Hey J., I just recently heard of something realters use to get smoke smell and other smells that don't seem to go away out of houses they are supposed to be selling. First you get an orange or if the smell is bad, a few oranges then hollow out a hole in the middle (a small hole) of each orange and fill with salt. Place the oranges throughout your house and supposedly it absorbs all of the smells and turns the oranges black. But supposedly it works like a charm. I have not personally tried it but thought it was a great idea especially if it leaves your house smelling like oranges! Good luck.

J.:

I feel your pain. About 3 weeks ago I burned a big plastic baby bib in my oven. I don't know all of the nuances of plastic, but I was able to scrape a lot of the plastic right out of my oven. I opened all of the windows in my house, borrowed some upright fans from my neighbors and tried to draw as much of the smell out of the house as possible. I let my fans go for about 3 hours. I did it when I was preparing dinner, so I just took my kids and myself out to dinner and then we played at grandma's.

I sprayed febreze on my drapes, carpet, couches, everything that seemed to still smell like the smoke. My house doesn't smell. The first one or two times I used my oven, it did stink again, so I opened my windows and turned on my range fan. Now all traces of the smoke and plastic are gone.

Good luck!

Plain old ammonia works great for cleaning ovens and getting rid of smells. I know ammonia smells bad itself, but believe me it works great. Put a bowl of it in the oven overnight and just let it set. When you get up in the morning fix some more ammonia with water and wash the oven down.

I use it for washing walls, cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors all the time. I know right now baking soda and white vinegar are strongly recommended because they aren't hard on the environment, but this is a special situation and ammonia works great and the price can't be beat either.

I've had good success with Febreeze on some things. I've tried it on some pretty bad smells, and cigarette smoke. It's worked well, although I'm not sure for how long it works. I'm really skeptical that it can make the smell just disappear. Your drapes should be cleanable on some level, although dry cleaning is expensive. The clothes might wash up well with Arm and Hammer detergent since baking soda is good at absorbing smells. I'd try that and then Febreeze before just getting rid of them. Maybe scrubbing the oven with baking soda might help, or just put an open box in and replace it when it doesn't seem to be working. Be sure to take it out before turning the oven on. :) I know that's frustrating. I've done plenty of stupid things and ruined great stuff of my own. It's the pits. I hope you can get things cleaned!

My mom burned pasta and had the same big smoke/ horrible smell problem too... she finally made a claim with the insurance company and they hired someone to come in and clean (wash walls, cloths, drapes, etc) and they did an Ozone treatment to get rid of the smell... it was the only thing that worked for her. So I wish you the best of luck!

I just read about vinegar. I don't know but wonder about it. You go to vinegar.com good luck

There is a product at "The Cleaning Supplier" called a smoke bomb. It is used after there is a fire in a home to remove the smoke smell. You may need to set a few of them off but it should help with the smell and might make it to where you can just clean the drapes normally.