I honestly never noticed it when I was young. The only odor that distinctly stays in my memory is my Aunt Clara's house. MOTH BALLS. The entire house and everything in it, including the food, smelled of moth balls. The closets were full of them to ward off..........moths, of course. But the odor, OMG, it lingered everywhere.

Before I moved to the Independent Living Community where I now live, I sold all my furniture and cleaned out my garage of old everything. I bought all new furniture for my new villa, so I'm pretty sure there's nothing here that smells OLD.

Except me when I use Salon Pas. That stuff is STRONG.

I do know what you mean about the animal smell. For over 20 years, we always had at least two dogs. A dogless friend of mine came into the house one time and mentioned (as politely as she could) that it was obvious we had dogs because the house smelled like it. Nope. We never noticed it.