God, what a humiliating thing to have to ask. I swear, I had one glass of wine - and a little food poisoning, I think. Nobody believes me and I think my reputation has suffered minor damage. At any rate, I couldn’t quite get the door open and I threw up for the first time since I was eleven years old. Cleaned up as best I could at the time, but there’s still a certain… aroma. No, you know, substance, just the smell.
And it’s at least 95 degrees in South Carolina, which does not help. I can’t get near it without seriously considering heaving all over again. I’m still feeling kind of awful.
What do you do about the smell? It seems to have attached itself to the car in general, specifically to a leather seat and the carpet between the seat and the door, which is hard to get at. How do I deodorize?
Go to a large pet store and get an enzymatic stain and odor remover like Nature’s Miracle. You have to spray it directly on the source of the odor, so if it under the seat, you will have to figure out a way to get under there. Soak the upholstery liberally, and it will get rid of the odor as well as any stain.
ETA: I do not know if it will leave a mark on leather, so test it in an inconspicuous place first.
Seems a heck of a waste of a car for only one glass of wine, the times that my car has hosted vomit, I can tell you that a lot more than one lousy glass of wine was involved.
Time is your best ally. That and dry weather which in SC is of course non existent. Clean, clean and clean again. I have found that anti pet cleaning stuff helps. Also Fabreeze (or however you spell it).
Take the car into a professional car cleaning place and they will really give it a good cleaning and then wait and hope for dry weather.
For future reference, the old fashioned way of dealing with it is to remove the bulk matter and sprinkle a coating of baking soda on the remainder, which neutralises the acid and blots the liquid into a removable cake.
This reminds me of my cousin, and her pet pig. They got stuck in a several hour delay on a mountain pass with an overfed pet pig in the car, with disastrous results. When she took the car to the cleaner’s, the attendant came back shaking, and asked “Lady, what happened?”
She said “You don’t want to know. I don’t care what it costs. Just clean it.”
She never told me how much it cost, but they got it all cleaned out. Somehow. And they still have the pig.
Urgh, I had to drive it just now. It was bad. Really bad. I don’t care what the weather does tomorrow (forecast: 101), I don’t care how I feel, I’m riding the scooter to work. At least if I throw up on that I can just hose it off.
Goddamn it! Would you believe I also hit the only pair of jeans I own that fit and was so sick I didn’t even realize it? I bet red wine puke does not come out.
It did come out of the jeans, thank goodness. The car still kind of reeks. I dumped a bunch of baking soda there in the crevice of the seat and the floor this morning. So of course I got baking soda all over my clothes. Which, today, were of course black. It would be funny if it weren’t all so damned gross.
Identified another possible culprit - I did start taking this new allergy medication this week and hadn’t had anything to drink with it until Saturday. It has warnings that it may make you drowsy and alcohol may intensify that, and that it may make you dizzy, but it doesn’t interdict alcohol. Possibly wine on an empty stomach plus allergy downer did it. I’m still not feeling so great, honestly, but I suspect that’s because I’ve barely eaten since.
Oh, vomit cleans itself up just fine on pets. All you need is another pet. Or if it’s a dog, the same pet.
Not my finest hour: “Oh, gross, the dog threw up.” “Yeah, I’m waiting for him to eat it again. Give him a few minutes.”
What will the zeolite look like? Do I have to apply directly to the surface (hard, as I think the problem is that it insinuated itself under the seat) or just in the area? (Now covered two inches deep in baking soda.)
Zeolite is a bunch of little stones that come in little bags, and you just have to hang it up. It is truly a miracle mineral–hang it and it works! It will take about thirty minutes in a car. Look for “natural mineral deodorizer” or something along those lines.
Did any of it get inside the door? You may have to do a little more cleaning than you anticipated.
This reminds me of the Car Talk call where the Great Dane threw up on the dashboard and the caller wanted to know how to clean it out of the air conditioner/heater vents. Hilarity ensued.
I’m almost certain I did not get any inside the door. I can’t imagine how I could have. I did find a little surprise dollop inside that little storage pocket at the bottom of the door, though. Where the hell is that barfy smiley?
My understanding is that essentially once something gets in your car’s heating and air system, sell the car.
A few months ago, my boyfriend pointed out to me that the taste combination of orange juice and pizza is essentially the closest you can come to recreating the taste of vomit. Every time I get in the car now I have to quash my brain saying “Orange juice and pizza”, because if I let myself think of those two foods together I can’t promise not to add to the problem. (And wine, of course. There’s a certain grapey tinge to the whole thing.)
ETA - does zeolite work on cigar smoke? Because if it does I’m buying wherever I find it out of the stuff.
