From a purely unscientific point of view, do ozone machines work? Do they actually eliminate nasty odors? In a word, yes.
As a former property manager for a huge vacation rental company along one of the coasts, we used ozone machines continually in our business.
Tenant smoked in a rental? No problem. Drop the ozone machine in for a few hours and the smell was gone. Leave it in for 24 hours, and there would be no smell whatsoever in any of the linens, upholstery, etc. And, an ozone machine works wonderfully for other odors too:
- Seafood – anytime that anyone goes to the beach, they almost always have seafood. With the proliferation of vacation rentals, also came the proliferation of people cooking their own seafood within a rental unit. Combine that with the heat and humidity of the coastline, and that fish smell could linger for days… the only cure was the ozone machine.
- Cooking odors – seems like everyone likes spicy foods these days. And everyone’s cooking Mexican, Indian, Chinese, and other ethnic foods, especially when they’re on vacation. Again, drop in the ozone machine, and the smell was gone.
- Pet odors & pet dander – One of the sneakiest things people do when they go on vacation is they sneak in the family pet…and, invaribly, the poor cat (or dog) has an accident somewhere, or the rental is not pet friendly (meaning that the next guest could have an allergy to pets), or if it’s a regularly pet friendly unit…the pet smells linger. What can you do? Simple. The ozone machine always took care of this one, too.
- Spring break – And, here’s one of my favorite cures…imagine that it’s spring break, and somehow a small army of college kids manages to rent your vacation home. And, they spend a full week smoking weed in your house. The smell permeates everything…the upholstery, the carpet, the drapes…it even lingers in corners. Thank goodness we had our ozone machines for these rare occasions!
- Mold – One of the hardest things about managing properties along a coastline is simply mold. The moist, humid air encourages that greenish, brownish, and even reddish growth in corners, inside the air conditioning vents, in the bathrooms….in dozens of places. The quickest way to get rid of airborne mold spores (and that musty smell) is to drop in an ozone machine for a couple of hours (or longer) and simply let it do it’s thing.
So, are you convinced yet? I wasn’t either, at first. That is, until I started using the ozone machines we had. Then, the more I used them, the more ways I found them to be useful. Now, even years after I have left the property management business, I still know that they work, and my own home is never without an ozone machine.
