Hey dude, I am in similar situation to yourself right now. My two , only two this time, females are at day 49 of flowering . All my growing is done in a 6 x 6 x 10 ft walk in closet in my 2 bedroom apt . My neighbor just over the hall from me just happens to be the landlord . Suffice to say he does not like any weed smell of any sort in the hallways or coming from the doors. The apt is in a nice area of my city here in the Bay Area. Ok, there is probably more tolerance in this part of the country than some others . However, mj smoke is smoke to many people and so they demand it be kept outdoors. My landlord happens to be one of those people.
What I have noticed is that my mj plants do a lot of their stinking in veg. I know some will say otherwise but given that I have been constantly monitoring odor from my closet for years now , vegging is the stage I have to watch for most. An incident happened just at the start of flowering , last month, where I got a knock at my door . Slowly I went to open it and there was my landlords wife informing me that there was a UPS delivery for me. She had her little girl with her and she peers in the doorway and must have smelled something lingering the air coming from the closet. Low and behold about a week later , I bump into my landlord and he very firmly says " you need to keep the dope smoking outdoors ok, even my daughter smells it" . I thought very quickly and denied at first , then I went along with it just to avoid a mention of growing. Smoking is one thing but growing is another issue entirely.
Over the past few weeks I have been doing everything possible to mitigate the smell. So far so good as no more visits or complaints. I even will go outside periodically during the day and take a walk , then come back in and try and see if there is even the slightest whiff coming down the hallway or around my apt front door. Now bare in mind that in the past my landlord has told me that he smells mj smoke coming out of my apt. These were the exact same times that I sprayed some ozium around the doorway. Was he confusing the smell of ozium with mj smoke or did he think I was trying to mask the smell of smoke with ozium ?....I will never know and don't intend to find out either..
Ok , so what precautions have I taken with concealing the smell of my garden . Simply, I have put fabric conditioner sheets in my closet as well as in the small closet close to my front door. The smell of fresh clothes is everywhere now when I open the door. Not too heavy as to annoy my neighbors , just the clean washed smell of washed clothes. The smell can be irritating sometimes I have to say, but anything to get me and the girls through the next couple of weeks. Another thing is to try and create an airflow so that any odor leakage from the closet is not blown toward the front door. I keep windows open in my kitchen and bathroom to create a cross airflow at all time day and night. Honestly, bud odor if not addressed will make for some stressful times .
Whatever you decide on doing , remember to try and get the masking smell to fit into your environment and not cause too much suspicions with neighbors. Get PARANOID if you have to about how your plants are smelling . It could mean the difference between a completed harvest or an aborted effort that wasted your time and effort. All the best to you and let us know how things work out .