odour elimination

Help help help

*sick crying with a painful moan of disperation* i don't see a smiley like that so... anyway...

i was driving happy with my little pumy... music, breeze bla bla and after i stopped i discovered that 4L of active foam just went free in the trunk... now... i washed the boot textile, i washed the whole car interior... i thrown away the insulation as it was burnt by the foam... i watered up the whole interior yet in the boot there is still a bad bad smell...

how to get rid of it?

Can i pour water in the trunk till it goes out? i don't have any hole in the trunk for the water to go out so... any idea?

I know it might sound daft, but have you tried the home odour eliminators such as neutradol and fabreeze? Might help?

i tried something like that and now my car smells chemicals instead of mushroomed feet...

I'll try my gf method... baking soda in cofee filter

mihalyn90 said:

[post]350605[/post] Can i pour water in the trunk till it goes out?

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That is not a good idea.

Most bad smells are caused by the by-products of bacteria, fungi doing their stuff, so things like Febreeze, etc. get their results essentially by anti-bacterial/anti-fungal action and then throwing a more pleasant smell over the top. tl;dr? - they will not work on this.

You then have a huge range of semi-volatile organic compounds that just, er, smell - things like creosote, bananas, etc. This range also includes 'perfumes', as here.

So - #1. Wash away what you can with warm water and allow to dry. #2. Fill entire boot and all likely areas with cat litter (MUST be Fuller's Earth type) #3. Ventilate interior of vehicle for extended periods. #4. When smell goes then vacuum away cat litter.

Fuller's Earth is a type of inorganic clay with an amazing property to trap and bind not only liquids, but also volatile molecules as well. In its fine powdered form, it is the stuff that is used in NBC decontamination.

Might not be helpful at all, but if you cut a good amount of the largest onions you can find in half and put them in a freshly painted room they completely suck up all the smell... you never know might work..

mihalyn90 said:

[post]350605[/post] Can i pour water in the trunk till it goes out?

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Fuller's Earth is a type of inorganic clay with an amazing property to trap and bind not only liquids, but also volatile molecules as well. In its fine powdered form, it is the stuff that is used in NBC decontamination.

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Have fun cleaning that out once it's all congealed into a nice squidgy mess :roll:

guys... we are talking about concentrated active foam... 4L... enough for 200L of soapy water.... two hundred liter concentrated to 4L... that is all... well if this goes this way... i'll do a wash again and again... pour some little water... rag it around... vacuum clean the water (i have a vacuum capable of absorbing water)... if that doesn't work... paint it is...

mihalyn90 said:

[post]350644[/post] guys... we are talking about concentrated active foam... 4L...

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Except we are not. If you've already removed the bulk of it then you're looking at 100 - 200ml of it remaining at the very most.

If Fuller's Earth can mop up contamination, both liquid and airborne, left by chemical weapons and nerve agents, then your bit of 'active foam' is not going to trouble it.

i'm going to search that up

yeah i found fuller's earth in romania... costs a bit but well...

although did anybody tried Valet Pro Odour eater?

mihalyn90 said:

[post]350671[/post] yeah i found fuller's earth in romania... costs a bit but well...

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The granulated form (cat litter) will be much cheaper and easier to clean up later. It's nowhere near as effective as the powered form, obviously, having a smaller active surface area when granulated, but will do the job.

Entire cars have been written off by insurance companies over this type of thing in the past. Some guy split creosote in the boot and it went everywhere, including the foam of the seats. He made (I think) pretty feeble efforts to clean it all up and went to his insurance company who deemed the car undriveable and that the whole interior needed to be replaced and that exceeded the value of the car!

My own experience of this was years back - a small amount of milk was spilt in the boot and I cleaned it up with warm water and blotted with kitchen roll and left it at that. Few days later (hot weather days!) the inside of the car genuinely smelt as though it had a dead rat in it. I was surprised, you'd think it would be no more than a sour milk smell, but it was much, much worse. That one was fixed by using a 50/50 water/disinfectant mix in a very fine sprayer and spraying the whole interior, especially the boot area, followed by ventilating the interior with a fan and the windows open.

So yeah, it's a subject that sounds really trivial and silly, but as I found out, it really can ruin your day.

well slowly slowly it get's in shape... problem is, weekdays i can not just leave it open in front of the flat, and this weekend i have things to do... so perhaps next weekend... anyway i'll keep it updated... cat litter having fuller's earth i don't know... we have silica gel here...