Fro over a month I have been fighting with the stench of the outdoor garbage can. I have tried Lysol, hospital disinfectants, masonry cleaner, etc., but nothing is cleaning this thing out. It is one of those big plastic garbage cans with the built-in tops and holds a week's worth of garbage. Any ideas would be welcomed!
pour in a gallon of laundry bleach
Did that too.
nose plugs
Wash it out with a quaternary ammonium-based cleaner, and leave the lid open for a few days to air it out (put your garbage somewhere else in the meantime)
Bob
Triple-bag your garbage--I found this helps a lot especially with certain items.
Keep your garbage cold before trash day.
Sanitize the trash can using 1 cup bleach, 1 gallon warm water, 1T. dishwashing detergent. Brush inside and out (a toilet brush works well), allow 5 minutes, rinse with a garden hose, and allow to drain and dry.
A can that has a tight-fitting lid helps.
Allow for more ventilation.
You could use the deodorizing "Stick-Ups," one inside the lid and one stuck to the inside bottom.
?????????????? HOW would I do that? Get a special refridgerator just for garbage?
I have no choice in what I get.
Comapny issued.
I would let the water sit in it for a day or three, maybe changing the water in the middle, with some soap or detergent. When things have cracks, they can't be cleaned in one, or several, strokes like in the Spic' and Span commercials.
Then fresh air and sunlight. Point the open end at the sun. As it moves it will get the inside sides. A couple days will probably do it.
If not, I'd make it the back-up garbage can, and put it some place out of the way, and save it for times when your regular number isn't enough. Leave the lid off, and in a year, it won't smell.
One more thing, if it's going to fill with water without a lid, you can turn it upside down and put a brick under one side. (How come when I was little there were aways spare bricks around, but I don't see that anymore.)
Hopeless.
Fats (and foul-smelling fat-soluble things) diffuse into polyethylene, which is what most plastic trash barrels are made from. That's why your Tupperware (also polyethylene) gets stained pink from lycopene (fat soluble dye) in greasy tomato sauce. So basically you have a reservoir of stench sponging into the plastic, and no amount of surfacting or scrubbing will take it back out.
No. Use the one you have. You didn't give any details so he and I assumed you were talking about your home. You can pour excess grease in a bottle and freeze it so that even if it drops it won't spill grease all over the place.
You can leave watermelon rind or even chicken packaging in your fridge or freezer. Or, there are lots of less problematic things that will still smell after a while. If you have no AC and it's hot out, and you have special problems with garbage can smell, it's worth doing this.
Let me guess. Your garbage pick-up is every Friday.
The following day, Saturday, you have a crawfish boil for your son's little league team and all the parents.
The only thing I can think of that might help is to put all the left-overs from the the crawfish boil in an industrial plastic bag and, late Saturday night, leave it on the neighborhood school playground.
Once an ex called to tell me that she had a week at Martha's Vinyard and her girlfriend had to leave after a day to start a new job.
I had a car, so she wanted me.
We had a good time and the last day found crabs inthe water we could pick with our hands. I carry a gallon container in my car so I got a few crabs and some sea water to put them in.
Driving home was more tiring than it might have been and I got home
11PM, forgot about the crabs and didn't go out of the apartment the next day. Then I realized the crabs must be dead by then so I didn't rush after that either. When I got there after 4 days in August, and I opened the trunk, the smell was overwhelming.I couldn't figure out what to do with them. Maybe I first thought of "dumpster" or "the local supermarket's dumpeter", I don't remeber, but I recalled the bad things I thought it had done**, and I figured that was the place. I started to go there, a long block away, and as I walked down the street, people ahead of me and across the street were saying What's that smell. I could hear them and I could see their gesticulations.
It was 7PM, I think, after the markets' closign time, and I left in their dumpster and never heard anythying more.
**bY far the worst was that they had a bunch of poor neightborhood 10 to 12 y.o. black kids working there as bagboys, and as a suburban guy I didn't think much about it, until something happened or it just dawned on me that they weren't getting paid and were wrking just for tips. So I told the manager that there were a lot of students and other ex-suburbanites who would tip if they knew these kids were doing it for tips. His answer was "We don't want them here anyhow", which had to be a lie, because they had no one else to do the work except the cashiers, who would have had to stop checking to do bagging. The kids did as good a job as anyone, and the small supermarket saved a lot of money by having them. And they worked right in front of the manager. If he didn't want them, he could have kicked them out. That, I assume, once in a while, there would be two kids at one aisle, one trying to work and the other talking to him or goofing on him, and once in awhile they'd have to kick someone out, I assume, is no excuse. And I shopped there for at least 2 years before I knew how this worked, and these kids would never ever ask for a tip, or for payment. I think it would have been contrary to their pride. They bagged for many customers for no money at all.Some not working inside were also usually willing to take the groceries home for people, and there were some old ladies and others who needed that. I assumed they got paid for that since it wasn't in the store, but watching that might have been how I started to wonder if they were paid for the work inside the store.
They never did put up the sign, or do anything for those kids.
Also the grocery closed 7 minutes before the time on the sign in window. Over and over I thought my watch was wrong, and I did without food. Finally I was careful to check and saw it was early and asked the manager. I said the cashiers needed time to close out. I send that's fine but change the time on the sign to match when you close. He didn't care.
If I had to put the crabs someplace, that was the place.
I put a dead skunk in my can. OK, so that was a mistake! But what I did was to hose out the can, then while still wet I put baking soda in the can getting it everywhere. I let that sit then poured in a whole gallon of vinegar put the lid on and let that sit over night. The stench didn't completely disapear BUT it did minimize it a great deal. Its now gone completely but it took some time
SD
You have above, many useful suggestions for getting rid of the existing smell. In the longer term, once that is solved, we simply don't put anything in the garbage that will putrify. Only un-recyclable papers go into the can. Veggies and fruit scraps, and non meat foods to the compost box. Meat scraps, bones, fish and shrimp remains, and meat containers and shrink wraps are packed into plastic grocery bags and frozen. (small volume, but huge impact, re smells). The night before pick-up, we put the frozen, bagged, perishable stuff into the can. (makes up less than 5 per cent of the volume of the can). No smell, no can cleaning, no raccoons, no rats, no plastic liners needed, and it makes the trash collectors' day. It's worth the trouble! Roger
Power wash, with a serious degreaser injected into the water stream. Rinse. Power wash again. Rinse. Let stand in open air and bright sun for two days.
"Roger Taylor" wrote in news:5OqdnXEil5ddJE3bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
My dog brought me a dead squirrel the day after our pickup. Had no coice but to place in the trash barrel/loader thing on wheels until the next week. This was in hot weather. It still smelled, so I left the lid open (sfter the trash was gone) and left it out in the yard away from the house for a few days. The smell was gone.
Another thing to try is soak and old cloth in cider vinegar (the dark kind). Toss a couple of newspaper sections in the bottom of the barrel. Then toss in the soaked cloth. It'll absorb the smells. You may have to do this again, if you are keeping the lid closed. Marina
Is it only me that uses plastic bags for garbage before putting it out in garbage cans? My cans are stored outside next to the side of the house. I don't smell them unless I open the lid, and because the garbage is in plastic bags, there are no (yuck) maggots crawling around in there after a few days..
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