The Mercedes dealer’s bid of $5000 to replace the interior was waaaay out of line and completely unnecessary. The brother’s suggestion of seeking out a body shop was on the right track, buy it’s the wrong kind of shop. What she needs is a DETAIL SHOP. I’m sure there are some in the Anchorage yellow pages. Since fresh crabs are plentiful in Alaskan waters, they’ve probably dealt with that smell before. They should be experienced with removal of carpets where the smell resides. They should also have an ozone generator, also called an ionizer, which is a small machine that should tender any remaining smell to be gone after the majority is cleaned from the backside of the carpet by hand or machine. A standard detailing runs about $75 here. Due to the complexity of the job, partial interior removal, and high Alaska prices, I’m guessing she’ll pay around $300 for this service. At least she’ll be able to breathe in her Mercedes SUV again.
Yep, there are all kinds of fishing smells that occur in and around Anchorage, the shops should be pretty familliar with cleaning up cars. You can imagine how rental cars get treated!
Hmmmmmm, there is no EDIT function to fix typos on original posts, just answers. Oh well, you get the idea.
Well I know the Avenger I rented up there last year had lead a hard life, and it wasn’t even a year old. It’s a good thing I walked around it and noted the dings and cracked bumper. I think the rental companies make good money charging renters for previous damage.
Try an Enzyme product…the one I’d like to refer is not for sale. The brand I can recommend is called “UNIQUE” and was bought at an Ace Hardware store. A bottle of concentrate costs about $11.00 and is extremely effective. It does have a very slight scent but not bad. I would NEVER use a product with a lot of perfume…I won’t mention the brand at the bottom of this website…Enzyme will kill the odor of cat urine and skunk…good stuff and good luck.
You get a lot of smell questions on the show and I’d love to recommend a product I use to get rid of unpleasant odors. The product is called Anti-Icky-Poo! It’s made for cat pee, but I’ve used it for other icky smells. The name says it all.
Forgot to attach the website if you can’t find it in the store…
The lady with crab stink in her car carpets needs to try zeolites. A fine powder soaks up smells. I don’t know where to get the stuff but at a hardware store demo it took onion smell off my hands in nothing flat (if you cook with onions you know how long the scent lingers despite numerous washings).
These minerals have an affinity for random molecules and are used to purify water. I think they demonstrated something similar at Oreck (vacuum cleaner) dealer. Dust it in, work it around with a soft brush, maybe let it sit overnight, vacuum it up.
I was listening to your show last Saturday, August 14 and, a lady(I
think) called in about spilling crab juice/sauce on the carpet of her
Mercedes. You suggested she not go to a dealer and have the carpet
pulled out and cleaned/de-fumigated at a body shop.No need to do that, way too expensive.
Several years ago I had a bowl of shrimp and sauce in my back seat,
took a corner too sharply and half the sauce came out and went down
the back of the seat. When I got home, I diligently tried to sop up
the spilled sauce and thought I had gotten most of it out. Wrong!The next day went I got into the car, I thought I had crawled into a
dead fish collection facility. Man, it was terrible.I pulled the back seat out and tried to scrub the carpet with a
variety of things - ammonia,vinegar, pine sol - you name it, but, the
fish odor was only diminished.A friend of mine at work suggested I try an ionizer or some type of
electronic odor eradicator that I could rent for a coupe of days.,
which is what I did.After two days, the fish odor was completely gone. What was left was a
kind of a sweet-burnt odor, not offensive and which also went away
after a month or so.The rental of the machine was $50, a whole lot less than what I would
have paid at a body shop or a dealer.I love the show and listen whenever I can.
Keep having fun!
The solution to the dead crab smell in the
lady’s car (8-14-10) is Ozone . . .
seriously. Some fire departments around the
country loan fire victims ozone generators
as a way to eliminate that nasty fire
smell. Ozone attacks organic substances
such as lungs, vegetation and icky smells.
Commercial Ozone generators are designed to
produce ozone in the ppm range so that the
amount of ozone it generates is not harmful
to humans.However it is possible to build your own
ozone generator for as little as $30 to
$50. Plans are easily obtained and
available on the world wide web. These home-
made generators produce enough ozone to do
serious damage to humans. Thus, they should
be used in a “human-free” environment, such
as inside the lady’s car while parked in her
garage. By comparison to the $30-$50 price
range for home-made generators and
commercial ozone generators is in the
hundreds of dollars.Probably not germaine to the discussion is
that I know about this after having been a
pawnbroker for about 25 years where my
customer base, while composed of mostly okay
people, also included guys who did things
like grow their own pot, and used home made
ozone generators to kill the skunky smell of
growing marijuana.Hope this helps . . .
The product that works is “What Odor”. It was presented on “Pitchman” last year just before the death of the infamous Billy Mays, from my fair city (Pittsburgh). They showed the successful results of using it on skunk odor and disgusting tennis shoes. I bit! I went to their website and bought a quart. It is non-toxic and totally organic. It worked on gasoline spilt on my hand, my mangy dog’s odor in the basement and even my spandex knee supports I wear playing racquetball, after not being washed for several weeks. A cat, belonging to a videographer friend of mine, peed in his $15,000 camera’s case, causing offense to all nearby when he opened the case at a shoot. I gave him some “What Odor”, he applied it and it worked. You have to apply it directly on the affected area and it does the job of totally elliminating the odor. Just “google” What Odor and it will come up.