Neighbors Dog Odor

Question
I just purchase my first home. My Neighbors had 2 dogs and the smell evades my house badly.  They since have move now the smell is only in my basement.  We tried knocking down the wall to reseal it and then replace the wall but the smell just wont disappear.  Please help me!

Answer
Hi Jiawonia,

I can appreciate your problem, and the fact you've gone through the expense of resealing the basement walls. You didn't say if your basement has carpet or other flooring that is holding the odor, or if the home's previous owner had pets, and the problem isn't the neighbor's dogs at all. You didn't say exactly what odor you have.

There are Enzymatic cleaners that clean and remove the pet odors. Nature's Miracle is one brand to look for. If you have flooring material in the basement and you've previously used cleaners or chemicals of any kind on the area, then neutralizing cleaners won't be effective until you've rinsed every trace of the old cleaner from the carpet. Even if you haven't used chemicals recently, any trace of a non-protein-based substance will weaken the effect of the enzymatic cleaner. The cleaner will use up its "energy" on the old cleaners instead of on the protein stains you want removed.
You may want to consider renting an extractor or wet-vac from a local hardware store. Extracting/wet-vac machines do the best job of forcing clean water through your carpet and then forcing the dirty water back out again. Once the area is really clean, you should use a high-quality pet odor neutralizer available at pet supply stores.

You can also neutralize the odor by alternating baking soda and vinegar.
After cleaning, sprinkle the area with baking soda and leaving it overnight. Next morning sweep it up and then use a strong vinegar wash. Then rinse the area. After the few hours, the smell of vinegar evaporates up by itself.

Planting fragrant plants such as Viburnum, Lavender, Peony, etc. between your home, and the neighbors home might help.

I don't know if this has been helpful or not.
You might have more luck writing to a different expert at this site, whose expertise is home cleaning.

Best of luck,
Patti