noodles123
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- Jul 11, 2018
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I just rented a car and they deodorized it with a bunch of stuff. When is it safe???
urgent! air freshener
- Thread starter noodles123
- Start date
I would try all of the above, 2-3 times each. Do you have a good sense of smell? As long as you can still get even a mild whiff, I wouldn't trust it. That stuff is usually so sickening!
Flboy
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- Dec 28, 2014
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Also let it bake in the sun with windows closed for a little bit.
OP
noodles123
Well-known member
- Jul 11, 2018
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- #7
We tried airing it out and it was still strong so I called the company and asked them if we could switch it out for one that hadn't been "freshened" lol. They were very reluctant to do so but they did allow us to ( we had to get a more expensive car that sat on the lot of 2 days already)
Thanks for your help!
Thanks for your help!
dhraiden
Member
Definitely wind the windows down and let it air out in a future similar circumstance. If a car interior has had its fabric surfaces properly vacuumed and hard surfaces wiped down, air-freshening isn't really necessary.
EllenD
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I'm glad they gave you another car, because the answer to your question is tough to nail-down...as long as you can smell the deodorizers it's still a great risk to your birds...
***As someone who has worked in the car business for about 15 years now, I can tell you that the stuff that both dealerships and car rental companies use to clean their cars with is the most wicked stuff on the planet. If anyone has ever seen a really nasty, dirty, stinky used car when it is first traded (or a rental returned in the same condition, and also the rental companies buy both new and used cars from dealerships as well) and then seen it 3 days later when it looks like new, not one speck of dirt/dust, no smells, no scratches in the plastic on the dashboard, the door panels, etc. anymore, no stains in the carpets or the seats, etc....well, if you've ever wondered "How in the hell do they do that?", the answer is "With lots and lots and lots of chemicals. Many different chemicals." You'd be amazed...
And if a car on a car lot or a rental car ever has a really intense smell of "deodorizer", like a strong "fresh" smell, or a strong fruit smell (usually orange or cherry), then that means that they most-likely put-off a "bomb" inside the car after they've already completely cleaned it with tons of other chemicals...They shut the doors, the windows, block all the air vents and any other points where air can get in or out of the car, and then they take a "car bomb", set it on the floor of the car, activate it, and shut the car up for at least 24 hours, maybe longer depending on the smell...(A "car bomb" looks like a little metal, aerosol can, like a small-sized can of WD-40 or something, that is of a particular "scent", and that is under extreme pressure; when activated they intensely release their entire contents over the span of a few hours into the car, and the deodorizer inside is made so that it's molecules cling to every single surface that they come in-contact to; the idea being that whatever the odor is, and wherever the odor is, the car-bomb contents will find it, bind to it, and eliminate it, even if it's inside the air vents, and as a result the stuff actually lingers for months inside of the air vents, and also usually saturates your air-filters, both the one under the hood and especially the "cabin air filter", which is usually directly in-line with your HVAC system and is located in or behind the glove-box of the car typically)...
We don't put the bombs off in every single used-car we trade-in or buy at an auction, etc., but they do all get completely "detailed", which usually takes 1-2 detailers most of an entire work-day to do, if not a few work days if the car needs entirely buffed with the machine, or is extremely awful on the inside...Being a salesperson and a sales manager for many years and having sold literally thousands of cars over my 15 years in the business (and traded hundreds and hundreds), I've seen the worst of the worst, things that people not only do to their cars, but that they actually drive-around having in their cars for years and years, smelling for years and years, sitting-in for years and years, etc. It's unbelievable at times. Most car salespeople who have been doing it in the same town/city for a long time all have certain repeat-customers who they actually dread helping due to the state that their trades are in; yes, they always buy cars, their credit is good, etc., but damn, as a salesperson you have to get-inside their trade to fill out the appraisal-sheet, get the miles, and sometimes drive it to a specific place where trade-in's are awaiting an appraisal, and then after the customer leaves with their new car the salesperson has to "stock-in" the trade and usually drive it to wherever new trade-in's are put for service/detail...And as a sales manager who has to appraise these trades, I can tell you from my own experience that there have probably been ~20-30 trades that I appraised and absolutely refused to to road-test. I simply open the doors up, take a whiff and a quick glance at the humanity of it, and then shut the door...And I can also tell you that if a trade-in is in this kind of condition, regardless of how great it is mechanically, you're going to lose a good 25% or more of what the trade-allowance would be if it was even semi-clean...Now i'm not at all saying that you should have your car completely, professionally detailed prior to getting it appraised, that's silly. Used cars are just that, they are used, and they are going to have dust, grease, grime, mud and dirt stains on the carpeting, stains on the seats, burn-holes, scratches on the inside and outside, broken trim pieces, smells, etc. All of this stuff can be easily taken care of by our detail department and/or the guys that come around to do quick and magical interior repairs...However, if you have a pile of dirty diapers in the back of your mini-van behind the back seat, smeared and stuck to the carpeting, or 3 dozen pizza boxes stacked-up on your back seat, each one having been there for years and each one with multiple slices of rotting, maggot-infested pizza in them and thus crawling all over the inside of your car, along with the flies that develop from them, well, those things are gonna hurt ya (both of those are true stories, but still not the worst, I won't go into the worst one I've ever seen, as it makes me vomit in my mouth just to think about it)...
Anyway, the point to all of this rambling about the car business is to inform the public of what chemicals you are exposing your birds to if you put them inside of a freshly-detailed car from a dealership or a rental place (usually this only applies to used/pre-owned cars at the dealership, or "new" cars that were demos and have miles on them that are going to be dirty; new cars aren't cleaned/prepped for the lot the same way at all, although they do still use the same chemicals on the windows, the plastic trim/dash, and any spots on the carpeting)..This isn't anything that I've ever heard spoken about inp-regard to birds being at risk due to the fumes, and now that I'm thinking about it, knowing what I know, it's actually quite frightening.
***As someone who has worked in the car business for about 15 years now, I can tell you that the stuff that both dealerships and car rental companies use to clean their cars with is the most wicked stuff on the planet. If anyone has ever seen a really nasty, dirty, stinky used car when it is first traded (or a rental returned in the same condition, and also the rental companies buy both new and used cars from dealerships as well) and then seen it 3 days later when it looks like new, not one speck of dirt/dust, no smells, no scratches in the plastic on the dashboard, the door panels, etc. anymore, no stains in the carpets or the seats, etc....well, if you've ever wondered "How in the hell do they do that?", the answer is "With lots and lots and lots of chemicals. Many different chemicals." You'd be amazed...
And if a car on a car lot or a rental car ever has a really intense smell of "deodorizer", like a strong "fresh" smell, or a strong fruit smell (usually orange or cherry), then that means that they most-likely put-off a "bomb" inside the car after they've already completely cleaned it with tons of other chemicals...They shut the doors, the windows, block all the air vents and any other points where air can get in or out of the car, and then they take a "car bomb", set it on the floor of the car, activate it, and shut the car up for at least 24 hours, maybe longer depending on the smell...(A "car bomb" looks like a little metal, aerosol can, like a small-sized can of WD-40 or something, that is of a particular "scent", and that is under extreme pressure; when activated they intensely release their entire contents over the span of a few hours into the car, and the deodorizer inside is made so that it's molecules cling to every single surface that they come in-contact to; the idea being that whatever the odor is, and wherever the odor is, the car-bomb contents will find it, bind to it, and eliminate it, even if it's inside the air vents, and as a result the stuff actually lingers for months inside of the air vents, and also usually saturates your air-filters, both the one under the hood and especially the "cabin air filter", which is usually directly in-line with your HVAC system and is located in or behind the glove-box of the car typically)...
We don't put the bombs off in every single used-car we trade-in or buy at an auction, etc., but they do all get completely "detailed", which usually takes 1-2 detailers most of an entire work-day to do, if not a few work days if the car needs entirely buffed with the machine, or is extremely awful on the inside...Being a salesperson and a sales manager for many years and having sold literally thousands of cars over my 15 years in the business (and traded hundreds and hundreds), I've seen the worst of the worst, things that people not only do to their cars, but that they actually drive-around having in their cars for years and years, smelling for years and years, sitting-in for years and years, etc. It's unbelievable at times. Most car salespeople who have been doing it in the same town/city for a long time all have certain repeat-customers who they actually dread helping due to the state that their trades are in; yes, they always buy cars, their credit is good, etc., but damn, as a salesperson you have to get-inside their trade to fill out the appraisal-sheet, get the miles, and sometimes drive it to a specific place where trade-in's are awaiting an appraisal, and then after the customer leaves with their new car the salesperson has to "stock-in" the trade and usually drive it to wherever new trade-in's are put for service/detail...And as a sales manager who has to appraise these trades, I can tell you from my own experience that there have probably been ~20-30 trades that I appraised and absolutely refused to to road-test. I simply open the doors up, take a whiff and a quick glance at the humanity of it, and then shut the door...And I can also tell you that if a trade-in is in this kind of condition, regardless of how great it is mechanically, you're going to lose a good 25% or more of what the trade-allowance would be if it was even semi-clean...Now i'm not at all saying that you should have your car completely, professionally detailed prior to getting it appraised, that's silly. Used cars are just that, they are used, and they are going to have dust, grease, grime, mud and dirt stains on the carpeting, stains on the seats, burn-holes, scratches on the inside and outside, broken trim pieces, smells, etc. All of this stuff can be easily taken care of by our detail department and/or the guys that come around to do quick and magical interior repairs...However, if you have a pile of dirty diapers in the back of your mini-van behind the back seat, smeared and stuck to the carpeting, or 3 dozen pizza boxes stacked-up on your back seat, each one having been there for years and each one with multiple slices of rotting, maggot-infested pizza in them and thus crawling all over the inside of your car, along with the flies that develop from them, well, those things are gonna hurt ya (both of those are true stories, but still not the worst, I won't go into the worst one I've ever seen, as it makes me vomit in my mouth just to think about it)...
Anyway, the point to all of this rambling about the car business is to inform the public of what chemicals you are exposing your birds to if you put them inside of a freshly-detailed car from a dealership or a rental place (usually this only applies to used/pre-owned cars at the dealership, or "new" cars that were demos and have miles on them that are going to be dirty; new cars aren't cleaned/prepped for the lot the same way at all, although they do still use the same chemicals on the windows, the plastic trim/dash, and any spots on the carpeting)..This isn't anything that I've ever heard spoken about inp-regard to birds being at risk due to the fumes, and now that I'm thinking about it, knowing what I know, it's actually quite frightening.
OP
noodles123
Well-known member
- Jul 11, 2018
- 8,145
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- Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
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- #10
EllenD- That is pretty much what they told me when I asked then what they used specifically to "freshen" the car--He was like, ummm "a lot...a little bit of everything"...Lysol was the first, followed by a laundry list of others. It actually made me uncomfortable about PEOPLE being in these cars (even with the windows down), but that was the least of my worries at the time. The one we ended up getting DID smell like leather and I clarified that this was NOT due to any sort of spray-on "new car smell". With their assurance, we proceeded with the non-perfumed car and the bird hasn't shown any signs of respiratory distress, but ARGH....certainly something to consider!!!
And Ellen, thank you- that information is very useful/interesting (especially for future reference).
And Ellen, thank you- that information is very useful/interesting (especially for future reference).
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