Sad story. A family member died a few days ago in Florida. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t found until 9 days later. From the emails that I’ve received from family members, the smell is truly horrific. A number of items are coming my way, via mail. Items including various pictures and personal items as well as a lap top and an ipad. my concern is that the smell will have permeated all of these items, since they sat in the house with the body in the warm Florida sun.
My question is, are there any tips, tricks and products that will remove said smell without damaging the items. I’m quite sure i can’t use Palmolive on the photos and a bucket of soapy water won’t work on the electronic equipment. A Google search gives me plenty of info on how to clean the house (which we have a service coming in to do) but not much help on individual items.
I’m not sure you need to do anything besides perhaps letting them air out for a while. The stench of death would be associated with anything touching the body itself and not something sitting a few feet away on a table. If the deceased was holding the objects when they died there might be an issue, but otherwise I don’t think you have a lot to worry about.
Any thoughts on running an ozone generator in this place?
I think part of this may be psychological: suppose you brought these items out and showed them to someone else. Would they immediately notice this “smell of death”?
I’m unsure if anything will come to me smelling that way. I’m just trying to come up with a game plan, if it does. from the emails I’ve gotten, they claim the smell is overwhelming, including items that they’ve removed from the apartment already.
A cheap method of masking and absorbing odors often used by long haul truckers to remove the smell in their trailers is just fresh coffee grounds.
Hauled fish yesterday and need to get rid of that smell?, open a can of ground coffee and sprinkle it about. Works really well.
If the stuff you get does smell like death, put it in some container and add ground coffee. May not cure it permanently but it will let you store the stuff.
Smells are notorious for triggering and revivifying (unfortunately an ironic word here) their distinct recollections over great time periods and with instant emotional context; they are bound up with sensory apparatus and portions of the brain handling emotion different than those used to (re)cognize other sensations.
Stories of war or carnage typically include “the smell of death is still with me,” or “…stayed with me for years.”
For the photos. you can run them through a digital scanner, save the scans for reprinting, then burn the originals. Or spend more money to send them to a photo lab to get reprints made, and burr the originals when returned.
Baking soda is often good for absorbing odours. Some items may benefit from being stored with baking soda sprinkled over them for a while, then discarded.
When my father died, no one was able to get hold of him so my aunt drove down to check on him. He had been dead several days before she found the body.
After the carpet he laid on and the underlayment was removed and some scrubbing of the floor (not much) the smell was gone.
Have used coffee grounds several times while working with Law enforcement during body recovery and smoldering the grounds, ie. in a pan on the stove is very helpful.
I had read about it and offered it as a suggestion and was worried that I might loose my love for coffee but that didn’t happen.
I would add, I am certain much less coffee would be used over just sprinkling grounds ??