“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.” ~ Neil Gaiman, American Gods
My husband tilted his head, trying to discern what the droning was.  It sounded like a plane taking off.  Or a paper shredder.  Or the whine of a seventh grade girl.  “What is that racket?”

“Oh, that,’ I said.  “I have the vent fan going full-bore.  I’ve been cooking bacon.”

“Why are you trying to get rid of bacon aroma?  You should inject the smell of bacon, infuse every room with it, dab it behind your ears,” he said.

I admit, there’s no more delicious smell than frying bacon, but I really don’t want people to associate that smell with my house.  The June Cleaver in me would rather have a scent redolent of vigorous house cleaning, Clorox, perhaps.

How should a house smell?

Not like our first house, the modest split level we bought in 1973 for $25,900.  By house prices of the day, it seemed like a pretty good deal when we made our offer, but we soon found out this reeking real estate would not have been a bargain at any price.

We’d bought it in late winter.  Maybe the stench was freeze-dried.

But in June, when we moved in, the smell was intoxicating, and not in a good way.

When we pulled up to the house after the closing, the first thing we noticed was the grass, which was knee high.  And the paint on the front door was chipped, and the window screens were drooping, and the garage door was dented.  How had we missed seeing all that?

When we unlocked the shabby door with our newly minted key, we were assaulted with a noxious amalgam of odors:  Cockatoo and mold and mutt and, maybe, limburger.

I don’t know how we did it, but we managed to live in that fetid house for two years.  We did all we could to deodorize it.

The first Sunday there, my mom, my mother-in-law, and I, painted every wall and ceiling in the house while Rick was at the National Guard Armory fulfilling his obligation as weekend warrior.

That seemed to mask the smell a bit.  So did the cakes of room deodorizer.  And the foods I burned.

That first summer we kept all the windows open, day and night, and positioned oscillating fans all over, hoping to blow out the “bouquet.”  A year later, we replaced all the carpets.

All our efforts improved the situation, but on a hot humid day, a good whiff would make your nasal hairs vibrate.

I am sure there were some good things about living there.  We ate the top tier of our wedding cake and tuna fish noodle dish in the dining room.  We watched Dick Van Dyke and Carol Burnett on the black and white portable TV in the living room.  I graded papers in the little office.  Washed my Frisch’s uniforms in the stationery tub downstairs (we couldn’t afford a washer or dryer).  As for the bedroom . . . we were newlyweds, after all.

But I hated, HATED that house. That house never seemed ours because of former residents’ stink lingered.  It is mostly the smell I remember.

Small wonder. Scientists claim that smell is the sense most highly related to memory.

Perhaps that’s why I remember the smell of my piano teacher’s coffee breath and yeasty pendulous breasts, not the sound of the F minor scale or the color of her settee.

So what would you want your house to smell like?

Grandma Mootsie was not a good cook, and yet I have olfactory memories associated with her kitchen:  the rusty bloody smell of the raw calves’ liver she cut into bite-sized pieces for her cat, Princess Scheherazade.  Remembering her purple bathroom –with the orchid -colored tub, fuzzy rugs, and tiles—I can still summon the cloying lavender-scented air freshener.

Grandma and Grandpa Seilkop’s house had no purple smells.  Their house smelled like comfort food:  rump roast and oatmeal and toast.  There was nothing artificial about it.

One smelly memory I have of my childhood home was from the fresh effluents that sometimes bubbled from the clogged septic tank down the hill.  And Dad’s bacon and eggs.  Also Mom’s burned pancakes and flowery L’Origan perfume.

My mother-in-law’s house had no food smells at all.  Meals were a catch-as-catch-can affair for this overwhelmed single mother.  But upstairs in the Cape Cod, the rooms with their slanted ceilings and slouching beds smelled dusty and tired.  In her final year—she would want me to tell you she lived to be 97 ½–her house smelled like loose dentures and bathroom accidents.  One of her caregivers taught us to keep a pot of Fabuloso All Purpose cleaner simmering on the stove.  We favored the Citrus and Fruits scent.

My daughter’s house sometimes has that delicious iron skillet smell, the smell that says that people make an effort on their meals.  And sometimes you get a hint of Danielle’s baby lotion.

I haven’t been to my Norwegian daughter’s new house in Oslo yet.  We will be in Norway for the month of December awaiting the birth of Stella, our Viking granddaughter, so I will inhale deeply and let you know.  I suspect it will smell like glaciers and forests and 23 hours of darkness.

Only daycares and nursing homes should smell of nothing.

Even realtors don’t think they should smell of nothing.  They tell sellers to bake bread or cookies before an Open House.

I loved the two-story house we built where our kids grew up.  When we moved in, it had that new house smell of sawdust and paint.  Then we added our smells:  gingerbread houses and birthday cakes and popcorn;  wallpaper paste, Crayola markers, science experiences, Christmas trees.  Also diapers, hundreds and hundreds of diapers but, strangely, I don’t remember those as bad smells.  They were our smells, nobody else’s.

I hope my granddaughters think, That apartment smells just like Libby and Pops, and it’s delicious. 

What does your house smell like? Nothing?  Or something?

Other posts about Home:

10 Things I Learned While Cleaning Out My Parents’ House
Downsizing:  We Sold Our House and Everything In It
After 55 Years in the Suburbs, We Moved Downtown
Our Silent Neighbor
When Your Friends Live on the Street, Your Street