Worst Smell

[Accy cyclist]

There's a slaughterhouse in our area that's been causing problems lately with it's stench. Apparently the firm that owns it is cutting corners by only having the offal skips taken away and emptied every fortnight instead of weekly. When the wind blows from the east half the town is covered by a rotting flesh stench, but the town dates back to medieval times when i presume rotting flesh was the norm. So in a way it's quite traditional/retro!

 

[Night Train]

When I was working in Rochdale my office window faced an anonymous building that once a fortnight produced a 'big hook' skip full of rotting flesh.
It was odd that there was no smell the rest of the time and then the skip would arrive and overnight it was filled with the most appalling stench. We'd arrive at work in the morning, close all the windows and vents and hope the collection happened before lunch.

 

[asterix]

There's a slaughterhouse in our area that's been causing problems lately with it's stench. Apparently the firm that owns it is cutting corners by only having the offal skips taken away and emptied every fortnight instead of weekly. When the wind blows from the east half the town is covered by a rotting flesh stench, but the town dates back to medieval times when i presume rotting flesh was the norm. So in a way it's quite traditional/retro!

There should be a campaign for real smells. Whilst life has become visually much more exciting, smells have been almost eliminated. What this thread clearly demonstrates is our olfactory starvation since all we get now is traffic fumes, cooking and the artificial stuff such as perfume when you enter Boots, deodorants and airfresheners.

Come home to a real smell!

 

[tyred]

Thanks Mickle. Peteaud, finish your eggs first

For sale: One Scooter. Genuine reason for sale...

 

[guitarpete247]

My late Aunt told me that, just after the war, my Dad and one of my Uncles decided to make some money by breeding maggots. They managed to get a large chunk of a dead horse meat but the only place they could put it was in my Granddad's shed. The shed was only about 25 yards from the house and by week 2 it was beginning to hum. They never got any maggots to sell to local anglers as they couldn't get near enough to the shed, even with the gas masks they still had from the war. My Nan never spoke of this. My Aunt, at this time was married and had moved out, found this hilarious.

About 10 years ago a neighbour of my parent's had her garage burgled. The scrotes took a load of things from her freezer (a chest freezer) and had dragged it near to the back door of the garage so they could see in it better. This had left it unplugged. When she discovered the theft the insurance company wanted everything left where it was for them to check on. This meant 2 weeks of rotting mess at the bottom of her freezer had to be got rid of. She managed the first couple of foot but could not reach the bottom 6 inches. My Dad decided to volunteer my services, as I've got a fairly strong stomach. Thanks for that Dad. I can still smell it, having to lean in to the bottom of that freezer to empty it. Once I'd cleared it she started using it again!!!! Can't say that I would.

 

[GordonB]

Other than that I once hadto go to a flat where the occupant had died 9 weeks earlier. His body was in a position with his head on his chest, thus trapping all the decomposition gases inside his body. He was extremely bloated and many different colours, but other than a fairly strong sickly sweet smell wasn't too offensive. ........until the undertakers moved him. His head rolled back and the gas escaped in a loud belching sound that I can still hear today. I fell down the stairs trying to make it outside before i puked.

Been there, done that several times. Many years ago I was in an employment black hole having quit uni with no job to go to and the only work I could get was at an undertakers in Clapham, where I worked for several months. The scenario above was something I encountered at least a dozen times, the worst being carrying the decomposing body of a bloke who must have weighed about 30 stone, down from about the 10th floor of a block of flats as the lift wasn't working. Four of us doing the job, one on each corner of the stretcher, taking turns at the lower end because that's where the truly unbelievable stink was concentrated and where the maggots were gravitating to. Managed to avoid puking, as did the other three, but spent about an hour in the shower afterwards.

Since then I spent over 25 years as an environmental health officer so foul smells were just part of the territory and nothing could beat the undertakers jobs, not even the knackers yard that was on my patch.

I even managed to resolve one of the worst stinks I ever encountered, smelt like the worlds biggest rancid eggy fart and caused by a tanker collecting the contents of sludge tanks at the local sewage treatment works. The driver would connect up the hose to fill the tanker with sludge but the company hadn't fitted a return hose connection so that the gaseous contents of the tanker would vent to atmosphere when the sludge entered. This was almost pure hydrogen sulphide so not it only stank unbelievably, close to the tanker it was at dangerously high levels. Solved it by requiring a return hose to give a closed loop. For them as aren't aware, H2S is actually about as toxic as hydrogen cyanide, but it smells so strongly you tend to be more aware of its presence. If you know its present but can't smell it, that's because it has destroyed your sense of smell and you're in grave danger.

 

[Melonfish]

Himalyan balsam!!!
i know maggot farms and baby poop (first one is the worst) and all that may contend but himalyan balsam is horrible, its that sickly sweet cloying plastic like horror.
i'm glad to uproot and burn the stuff (its invasive) but it really ruins my day smelling that whilst cycling.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Himalyan balsam!!!
i know maggot farms and baby poop (first one is the worst)

When I first became a parent I wondered what all the fuss was about, until a hungover (me, not the wee one) nappy change around the four month mark

 

[User16625]

Whats the worst smell you have experienced?

I started work in a Purina factory and the worst smell ever has to be the wet cat food fish pouches that have decomposed and burst. The stench gets in your clothes and I have even bleached my hands and you cannot get rid of the putrid smell.

Whats worse is the factory has to be 25C+ at the moment so no breeze to take it away.

The smell of out of date milk literally makes me heave. Other things just as bad include rotting road kill, unmaintained factory toilets, and some people.

 

[Peteaud]

Been there, done that several times. Many years ago I was in an employment black hole having quit uni with no job to go to and the only work I could get was at an undertakers in Clapham, where I worked for several months. The scenario above was something I encountered at least a dozen times, the worst being carrying the decomposing body of a bloke who must have weighed about 30 stone, down from about the 10th floor of a block of flats as the lift wasn't working. Four of us doing the job, one on each corner of the stretcher, taking turns at the lower end because that's where the truly unbelievable stink was concentrated and where the maggots were gravitating to. Managed to avoid puking, as did the other three, but spent about an hour in the shower afterwards.
.

Does anyone want to be an undertaker?

 

[Night Train]

When I bought my house it was divided into four 1 bed flats.
As my then wife and I had split up during the purchase we ended up taking two flats each to live in until the marriage was either fixed or terminated. (We divorced in the end.)

In one of my flats there was a bathroom with a lobby and airing cupboard outside of it.
When I opened the airing cupboard door it was stuffed full of clothes and the smell of BO and 'toilets' was overpowering. I opened the doors and windows in that flat and left it to air while living in the other flat. It took a year before it was approachable to clean out the airing cupboard.

I got some bin bags and started removing clothes. As I worked down the layer of men's clothes there were soiled pants, vomit stains, pee stains, and generally disgusting. Then there was a layer of newspaper that dated the pile!
Under the newspaper the clothes were different but in the same state of disgusting.
Then some more, older newspaper.
Then it was women's clothes, also soiled, stained and disgusting.
Then more newspaper....


The pile went back many years, changing gender and style and the newspaper dividers were obviously when tenants changed!

I don't know how they could have lived like that!


The lobby and airing cupboard, and the bathroom, was then demolished and the lot taken to the tip!


When I started on the stinky kitchen in that flat, there was an old Belling cooker in there. I decided I could drag that across the floor and get it out and to the tip. Half way across the floor the cooker tipped over and the oven door burst open.
Unbeknownst to me there was a chip pan in the oven, probably several years old and rancid. It fell out and poured across the floorboards!
I tried cat litter to soak it up. Then washing up liquid, then washing power, then a crowbar. The floorboards had to be ripped out to get rid of the oil and the smell, some of the joists also had to come out too. The oil had dripped into the basement and so the basement 'brick on sand' floor also had to come out.




The house doesn't smell any more!

 

[Octet]

When I bought my house it was divided into four 1 bed flats.
As my then wife and I had split up during the purchase we ended up taking two flats each to live in until the marriage was either fixed or terminated. (We divorced in the end.)

In one of my flats there was a bathroom with a lobby and airing cupboard outside of it.
When I opened the airing cupboard door it was stuffed full of clothes and the smell of BO and 'toilets' was overpowering. I opened the doors and windows in that flat and left it to air while living in the other flat. It took a year before it was approachable to clean out the airing cupboard.

I got some bin bags and started removing clothes. As I worked down the layer of men's clothes there were soiled pants, vomit stains, pee stains, and generally disgusting. Then there was a layer of newspaper that dated the pile!
Under the newspaper the clothes were different but in the same state of disgusting.
Then some more, older newspaper.
Then it was women's clothes, also soiled, stained and disgusting.
Then more newspaper....


The pile went back many years, changing gender and style and the newspaper dividers were obviously when tenants changed!

I don't know how they could have lived like that!


The lobby and airing cupboard, and the bathroom, was then demolished and the lot taken to the tip!


When I started on the stinky kitchen in that flat, there was an old Belling cooker in there. I decided I could drag that across the floor and get it out and to the tip. Half way across the floor the cooker tipped over and the oven door burst open.
Unbeknownst to me there was a chip pan in the oven, probably several years old and rancid. It fell out and poured across the floorboards!
I tried cat litter to soak it up. Then washing up liquid, then washing power, then a crowbar. The floorboards had to be ripped out to get rid of the oil and the smell, some of the joists also had to come out too. The oil had dripped into the basement and so the basement 'brick on sand' floor also had to come out.




The house doesn't smell any more!

That's one way to do the house work!

 

[Baggy]

Unbeknownst to me there was a chip pan in the oven, probably several years old and rancid. It fell out and poured across the floorboards!

Exactly the same thing happened to me in my first flat - thankfully the floor had lino down, but the smell was still rank!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

When I am ill and every smell is heightened beyond belief. Food is bad, but the smell of my own s*ite is often enough to make me want to barf, so suddenly going to the bog becomes this great heroic effort!


.......Well, it would be, but I often have no choice but to run like Usain Bolt just to get to the toilet in time!

which smells of a certain male fluid!

......Beer? ....WD40? ...........Swarfega? ............Araldite?

 

[slowmotion]

A long time ago I was bobbing down the Ganges in a rowing boat, admiring the ghats of Benares. About forty metres away, a cloth -covered package hoved into view. My Indian friend told me that poor families who wished for their dead relatives to end up in the sacred river, but could not afford the cost of cremation.......well, they just didn't bother with cremation. Oh dear, in the heat of an Indian June, a floating dead body does not smell good.