Science Experiment

I came home for lunch today and my house smelled really really bad.  It has smelled kinda bad lately when I've come home so I've been doing whatever I can think of for smell: Febreeze the couches, baking soda sprinkled on the carpet and then vacuumed, I washed nubbins (my dog) teddy bear he chews on, his bed, his favorite sleeping pillow.  I mopped the floor and washed the rugs in the kitchen.  I've done almost everything I can think of, so imagine my frustration when I came home to a smell.  I used my nose (it is pretty much amazing for identifying scents but the scent of my house has been unfamiliar to me) to sniff out the scent which led to the clothe-less laundry room.  I discovered the scent was the washer.  So I decided to run the washer without any clothes in it with baking soda instead of laundry detergent.  Then the proverbial lightbulb went off in my head and I remembered one time when a lady I work with said you can clean your washer by running it empty with a cup of vinegar.  

"Well," I thought to myself, "if baking soda gets rid of smells and vinegar cleans why not do them both at the same time??!"  So I proceeded to pour vinegar in the washer with the baking soda.  Umm.... anyone who has ever taken a science class ever probably knows the outcome of my little experiment.  There was some fizzy action and the fizzies filled the washer but eventually they died down.  And as far as I can tell the smell is gone but I might be used to it.  Skunks can't smell their own scent you know.