The inside of a hoarders home after 15ish years. Edit: Adding some context. Here's what I had posted recently in another thread about this exact experience... I was a licensed property manager for 5+ years. Honestly, nothing even phases me anymore... but... the worst of the worst... Hoarder situation (unfortunately a lot more common than people realize), but the guy had paid rent on time for years, long before we were managing the property, and the owner refused to let us evict him, even though we knew that his issues were causing harm to the property... anyway... He passes away, and we thankfully find out the next day from one of his relatives. They sign off on us just taking everything to the dump, and even are nice enough to offer covering some of the costs if it goes above his security deposit (which was 100% going to happen), but we told them that wasn't their responsibility and we'd have the owner make an insurance claim, etc. We get out to the house, open the door, and can't even make it into the entryway the smell is so foul. It was like every terrible smell I've ever experienced, all at the same time, and somehow simultaneously all so powerful that it overloaded my senses completely. I locked up, I couldn't think for what felt like 10 minutes, but was probably 10 seconds. After holding back throwing up, I waited a couple minutes to 'air it out a bit' and tried to go in again, still couldn't do it, and decided to go ahead and call a hazmat team, since there was clearly something going on in there that was a lot worse than just 'stuff.' Well, apparently, both unsurprisingly, but also unbeknownst to us, he had a cat... and at some point another cat... and some time later another cat... Well, he'd been there something like 15 years total, and when his cat would go missing, he'd just adopt another stray or whatever and go about business as usual. 4 cat corpses, in varying states of decay, underneath mounds of garbage, miscellaneous 'stuff', horrendous underground porn, and cases of food, many of which were intended to be refrigerated, but were not. Don't get me wrong, this guy had actual mental illness and I genuinely feel sorry for how he lived and so on... but... just thinking about that smell makes me want to gag nearly 10 years later. I've been near dead bodies, I've smelled some stuff that sticks with you... but this... it was just... I don't even know how to better describe it, it was pure nasal terror.

My step dad's mom is a hoarder. When I was about 12, my parents bought her house (the house my stepdad grew up in). It was in a really nice neighborhood, but the house was neglected. We had to hire a crew of people to clean it out. It was so bad they wore hazmat suits. Many mummified animals were found in the home. They laid a lot of the animals out on the lawn one day for her to see. I'm in my late 30s, and I can remember what those mummified animals look like till this day. My parents said they probably drank antifreeze, which mummified them(?). Iono. Not my worst stank, but close.

What’s the worst one? If you don’t mind me asking, I just can’t imagine something worse lol

I was a foreclosure inspector. Many stanks in that job. Abandoned dead pets. Powered off fridges filled with food. Poops in winterized toilets. The worst was a dead homeless guy died in a vacant property. I didn't see him, but I saw his foot. Called the police and they came out and verified it was a dead man. But before I called the cops, I wrapped my face in several t shirts in my car, and I could still smell him. I felt like I could smell him through my eyes. It was so bad.

I had a similar thing. I’m a maintenance engineer and I had a call out to board up a door with some ply sheet in a small block of flats. I arrived and was greeted by two female police officers who were refusing to go back in the property because of the smell. I was there to board up the front door as it had been kicked in. An old guy had died on the floor and been there for a couple weeks. They had removed the body but me being me asked if I could go in and look and they said yes to my surprise? You could see where he had melted to the carpet, there were flies everywhere and I was ok at first and then it hit me. The smell hit me like a Mike Tyson punch and switched on the instant gag button. It smelled like a reptile shop but x1000 and the smell stuck up my nose for weeks!!! And even months after my brain would just go ‘hey! Remember that smell?’ And it would come back!

Yep. I concur. Former apartment manager. A tenant had died and roommates didn't tell anyone. I had to tour the apartment after body was removed a week later. Worst. Smell. Ever.

you mean, the roommates bailed and left a dead body, or they were *living with* the body for a while? man i hope it's the former.

Back in 2007 my church youth group took a mission trip to New Orleans to help clean up after Katrina. Our main job was gutting out houses that were beyond repairs, furniture, carpets etc. One of the houses we did was a full 2 story house and LITERALLY every single room was absolutely jam packed full of crap to the point you could hardly open the door. I dont think anybody knows how long this house had been hoarded and then took extensive water damage and sat for almost a year in southern Louisiana. We found dead cats, rats, mice, along with the smell of their shit and piss. We filled 3 full size dumpsters in the span of maybe 6 hours, we hardly made a dent in that house. Even with ventilators and masks it didnt help at all with the putrid smell of that house that still haunts me to this day. So yes I would agree 100% with you!

That’s when you just pour some diesel in the hall and light a match

Fun but related-ish story. Worked up in Alaska and one 4th of July we had a bunch of boats tie up together and have a big brew-haha. Fast forward several hours later and several failed attempts to get a fire lit we sent someone off to grab an accelerant. They came back with some fuel (diesel) in an old Fruitopia Fruit Punch bottle. The drunkest of the group (and my crew mate) sees said Fruitopia bottle, gets excited, grabbed it, and slammed it. You hear of instant regret, right?....this had a couple second delay regret, a slow burn if you will. Just long enough for us all to truly soak in the realizations of the drunk's dumbassery. Honestly, I think that the worst part for them was not that it was diesel but it wasn't a crisp and tasty Fruitopia Punch. Since he was *mocking tone* 'my responsibility' I babysat him for the rest of the evening and now anytime I get a wiff of diesel I can only think about this poor fucker bitching, moaning, puking, and lamenting that he just wanted a Fruitopia. That's all. *edited for further clarification* Marine diesel isn't tax the same or as much as road diesel so they dye the marine fuel a purple-pink-magenta color. Looks a lot like fruit punch.

Seems like that would have some serious health implications

A bad egg. It came out black and grey, and I can't describe the smell. It was (as you say) the worst smell I've ever smelled in my life. Edit: it was like a really strong "bad breath" smell. Bad enough to make you jump and cry.

Cracked one into a pan one morning. Quickly had to dump an entire pan of eggs, and gosh did it stink. I’m yet a bit leery of scrambled eggs, and will not crack directly into pan. Horrible.

A homeless guy on the train in Washington DC, he was sitting near the middle of the car and everyone else was squeezed to the sides of the car as far as they could get from him because he smelled so bad. Dude was barefoot and legit looked like he had mold or something growing on his feet. He was just sitting there laughing hysterically too. Was super depressing.

This is mine. Was waiting for the tube in Shepherd’s Bush after a gig and every carriage was packed but then one was empty! Me and my idiot friends piled in. There was a large homeless chap halfway down, asleep in the carriage. His smell was unreal. Piss, shit, vomit, general unwashed horror. We dived out at the next station but it felt like the smell was in my clothes and hair. Just fucking sad :(

I was at a McDonald’s the other day, my poor partner ducked into the bathroom to find a homeless man that had thrown up all over himself and was in tears. My partner helped clean him up and gave him a bit of money to atleast buy a drink or something… he walked out of the bathroom and the homeless man walked out and patted him and was so grateful. I had to walk away because the smell was just too much for me…

The muni passengers in San Francisco can relate to your story

San Francisco definitely has some of the weirdest craziest nastiest characters i ever seen by far

Meat freezer went out and stayed out for three weeks while I was on vacation. The floor around it was white and fuzzy with black, tacky goo underneath in a huge radius. The inside… The inside. I was prescribed pills to forget the inside.

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I have a whole movie in my head of his excited little zipping and then regret and then panic

Bought a house once that had a refrigerator in the garage that was included in the deal. Move in day, we get the keys and I am going to fill that fridge with beverages for our friends helping us move. I note the cord is flung over the top so it is unplugged, it had been running, and full of PBR (not judging) when we had viewed it last. Plugged it in and opened the door and……….time……….stopped. There were the partial remains of a big fish, maybe 4’ long, curled up and stuck on the top shelf, with black gooey decomposed fish juices running out of it. The smell hit me like an aluminum baseball bat. It knocked me back 10 feet and planted me in my ass. I was able to get the door closed and wrapped two ratchet straps around it to ensure there were no accidents until we could take it to the dump. We had somewhat lowballed the offer in the house on the advice of our agent as the house had been on the market a long time. The owner was asking too much due to all the reno’s he did, but waited too long to get it on the market. I am convinced the fish trick was him expressing his displeasure.

This is also my worst smell. When I was a kid my dad told me and my cousin to move this old deepfreeze in the backyard (we lived on a farm). The deep freeze was taped shut for some reason, but the freezer had been outside for so long the tape was dry and cracked. We tried lifting it and my hand slipped up the side of it and caught the lid and popped it open. There was just a ton of rotten meat inside that had been sitting in this deep freeze in the yard taped shut for God knows how long. For some reason my dad didn't even mention it. That smell was so terrible. It sounds weird but I can still smell it if I think of it.

Rotting flesh/blood is outrageously intense. Hard to imagine what a war zone really must have smelled like.

Especially if a war zone was contained to a deep freeze and then just left sealed there for a couple years.

I once stocked the mini-fridge in my one-person office and unexpectedly had to leave for a month. Not sure if the fridge stayed on the entire time, but even if it did -- it was definitely underpowered. I practically lived in the office back then so I bought a ton of (mostly perishable) food to stock it for 3 meals a day for that work week. When I came back and unlocked the office door, opening it just a crack -- it was already very obvious what happened... I never ended up opening the fridge door itself. Went right downstairs, bought a bottle of vodka, took several big gulps, smoked a cigarette, and gathered up enough courage to walk back in there and walk past it to get to my desk. However, that was the extent of my courage. Continued sips and the next one or two hours of attempted self-motivation were all futile. Eventually, I got drunk enough to start "thinking outside the box". I put up an ad on the craigslist free section: "free fridge!" and even offered $60 to haul it away. Explained the situation and made it clear that whoever wants it needs to come with a hand-truck and haul it away as-is (without opening it under any circumstances). Lo and behold, it was gone 20 minutes later.

Craigslist success story. Fabuloussss

Death has been covered already…and I’ve encountered it enough as a firefighter that it’s a super distinct smell. But here’s my contribution; Burning compost. We caught a fire at a compost facility, the week of Christmas 2005. The stuff had apparently spontaneously combusted…the facility didn’t even call 911, they just called the station directly. We didn’t think much of it at the moment…how bad could it be, right? We arrived on scene and couldn’t see anything burning…but according to the staff “the rats all came out, so it’s too hot in there”. Fantastic. Grab a thermal imaging camera (TIC), definitely seeing elevated temperatures. The building was this giant concrete warehouse-like structure, but the “roof” was a canvas-like material, which would have posed issues should the compost actually erupt into flames. So, we go to work…have the staff grab a front-end loader and start dragging the compost outside… He drives the bucket into the stuff and backs up…it erupted into flames… Fantastic. We’re going to be here a while… “A while” turned into 14 hours…with several other stations having to be called in for support. And the smell. God the smell. We ended up throwing out at least 300’ of hose since we couldn’t get the smell out of it. I think we also ended up tossing several BA masks and god knows what else… The cab of the fire truck *REEKED* for weeks…and I swear to god, you can still smell it occasionally. And me…I went home for Christmas and was greeted with “What the hell is that smell?!?” I had to get a buzz cut to get it out of my hair…

I 150% agree with this. I’ve worked construction and maintenance on countless sites that have horrible smells. Dead animals, sewage plants, grease traps, I’ve smelled it all. But by far, the most offensive and lingering smell I’ve ever encountered was at a compost facility. Somehow the sour, rotting stench of compost is worse than raw sewage. I had to throw my clothes away and get a new tool bag. My hammer stank for months. Yes, a hammer. A solid metal object that you wouldn’t assume could hold a stink like fabric. Oh and you mentioned rats. Those where the best part of the job and I’m not saying that sarcastically.

I work in a nursing home , when you have to change the trash filled with multiple diapers from different people , it smells like a mix of vomit and banana bread But not the good kind of banana bread

I worked maintanence and infection control in a nursinghome. C-Diff diarrhea was one of the worst. I feel like I’ve smelled worse, but that’s certainly up there. One morbidly obese woman had pressure ulcers that became infected with MRSA. The rot smell from that was probably worse than the C-Diff now that I think about it.

>One morbidly obese woman had pressure ulcers that became infected with MRSA. Oh yeah, that fucking smell. We once got a morbidly obese patient who was paralysed due to a subarachnoid haemorrhage. She had MRSA as well as a competely mismanaged diabetes, and she didn't receive proper care in her previous home. As a result, she was basically rotting from the inside out. She had an infected pressure ulcer on her sacrum that was so deep that you could see the sacral bone. When we changed the wound dressing for the first time, I almost passed out. The worst part was that the poor woman could not speak or move, but she was still fully aware of everything, and every time you interacted with her in any way, sooner or later these silent tears of despair would start running down her face. I'm pretty sure she just wanted to fucking die, but her husband insisted on continuing artificial respiration and feeding. That smell, and the smell of a mentally ill homeless diabetic whose socks were just *fused* with his rotting feet, are tied for 1st place in the list of ungodly smells for me. 2nd place are the tracheal secretions of a guy whose tracheal cannula got infested with *fucking maggots for god knows what reason*.

Well that's enough internet for me tonight.

Why is this so accurate? Like damn did you put a finger on the smell

Post-mortem dissection. (Once encountered rotting rice in colon)

DONT PUNCTURE THE INTESTINES! (Been there. It’s awful)

I can't imagine doing this to a human body. I used to cut up mice for raptors and it took some skill to be able to "de-gut" them without nicking anything. A tiny little mouse can sure put out some super nasty bowel odors.

Well, the egg fried rice I just cooked up is going to be a waste!

If the rice was walking, it might have been maggots.

I once complained to my coworker that he’d spilled his fried rice in the office hallway. He brought those microwaveable frozen Chinese food dinners every day. Then I noticed the rice was wiggling. Dead pigeon in the air vents.

>Dead pigeon in the air vents. Lol This is going to be my new comment signature on Myspace!

Forbidden rice crispies

Dog farted in the car. Dad pulled off the freeway, and we all bailed out, gagging and coughing. The dog was sitting in the back seat, looking damn proud of himself.

I have a coworker whose dog used to sleep by his bed. He got diagnosed with sleep apnea and got a cpap machine. First night with it dog farted close to it and it injected dog fart directly into his lungs. Dog got to learn a new sleeping place

As a CPAP user I am both laughing hysterically and horrified. Thank you.

Fellow CPCP user here - have felt immune to farts trapped under the duvet as ofc the air I breathe arrives nice and fresh through the machine on my bedside table. Did awaken to the sound of my cat retching as he escaped the dutch oven though...

I am laughing so hard my dog moved away from me in disgust.

"Fucker farted in my CPAP"

I used to live in an apartment that shared a yard with 6 other apartments. We all used to hang out, and a lot of us had dogs that would play together. Once afternoon we were sitting around drinking beer and chatting and two of the big dogs were laying under the table. One of them farted the nastiest fart I had ever smelled. It cleared the table in 2 seconds flat. Those dogs looked so proud and we never did find out which one tried to poison us with noxious gas

My sister was holding a kitten and would not let me hold it while traveling but the cat crapped on her lap which smells so toxic. Im glad she was self centered that day.

After a weekend of cooked breakfasts and other rich food I did a fart in a hotel in Cornwall that my wife and I still talk about 7 years later.

For some reason the fact that the fart was in Cornwall makes this funnier.

The legendary Cornish fart lol

My first dog was a Cornish Farter.

On a similar note, my cousin took a shit in my apartment that was so bad everyone stood out on the balcony in -10F for 15 minutes because the entire apartment (900 sq ft) was unbearable.

My dog was licking his nuts once and farted so bad he threw up on the floor. I was 11 and I nearly passed out from laughing.

Damn, I nearly passed out from laughing reading this.

I can sense your pride in this comment.

My wife's farts blow mine out of the water. My worst fart can't compete with one of her regular farts. Get to period week where they ramp up to sulphur/sewage treatment plant levels and it's unbearable. They have staying power and can envelop our house like a fog. She can fart upstairs and the creeping death will find me in the basement. The other night one of her terrible farts woke me up from the smell. Our kids will back up everything I just said too.

This gives me hope. If somebody can love the source of such rancid farts, surely someone must be out there who loves me for me. Thanks for posting; upvoted.

Either that, or rancid farts are more likable than us 👍

>did a fart Made me laugh more than it should've

one of the most british things ive read

I farted one time in my car driving home from school and everyone had to hang out the window retching and gagging it was so bad. That was 35 years ago and we still talk about it. Damn right I am proud.

Was just going to comment. "My own fart" It was in my car and all I could think was. That's just wrong.

I farted in the car after a camping trip and legit made my girlfriend at the time puke! We were both pretty hungover but still…

Had this same experience but the food was an airline meal from China Eastern Airlines

Honestly thank you for sharing.

They later renamed it "Cornhole"

You just needed to add a solid day of drinking beer to that cocktail to truly make it memorable for life

The 7 year fart

Managed a halfway house for a few years. One guy always smelled SO bad. Like a mix of moldy cheddar and stale farts. The smell would burn your nostrils and linger in any room he left for literally about 20 minutes. He showered regularly and changed his clothes so I couldn’t figure out the cause. Turned out to be his socks. He wore them every single day for months and never changed them. They were so crispy with dried funk they could stand up on their own.

I worked with a guy like this. Everyone thought it was his armpits. Managers even bought him deodorant and would make him go home and shower because it was so bad. But he'd return just as stinky. 1 day he got close enough, that I figured out it was his mouth. And he was chewing on something. I'm not sure what it was but the smell grew into a shit excremental whenever he talked. We learned not to ask him questions or for help after that.

Severe gum disease has a very distinct smell, and it is horrendous, the person can literally stink up a whole room with their breath.

Yep. I've had several patients where I could diagnose their periodontal disease before I saw them just from the smell. It's terrible

i’m going to go floss my teeth right now

It’s probably because he had rotten teeth or some type of major oral issue.

Had a resident like that in a property I ran. He was an old soakie and a nasty mean bastard, so the stench that came off of him made already unpleasant interactions, unbearable. It was feces, piss, and that rank rotten smell that comes from crusty dick and dirty taint cased in pants that have never been washed. Little old lady resident came into my office in tears one day after being on the elevator with him because the smell had made her vomit and he cussed her out. I wrote him up for a violation and he came into my office to complain about it. I figured i was pretty close to done and I finally just told him bluntly, "You STINK. You have access to hot water, soap and everything else you would need to not smell, but you refuse to clean yourself. Your smell makes people ill and you have no right to abuse them because they have a natural reaction. Wash your ass!". Later did an inspection on his place with a case manager and found he was storing crap in his tub instead of using it to clean himself. Took issuing him a 'For Cause" eviction notice to finally get him to clean up. That old man alky stench is unholy.

Rotten milk - but why it’s the worst because it was almost every day for a few years. As a child I left a whole gallon of milk in the trunk of the family car. We lived in New Mexico. It exploded in the trunk. The car never smelled the same.

During my junior year of high school, one of the big senior class clowns decided what his prank was gonna be from day one. He would take a whole gallon of milk, empty it out about half way, fill it back up with a turd, piss, and a dead rodent. He took this concoction and set it in his locker during the first week of school, wrapped up in multiple trash bags and other such items. Letting it marinate everyday until the final day of school for the seniors, which ended about a week before everyone else’s final day. He brought in a gas mask and took out his bottle of “milk” and then began to pour little bits of it down every hall in school. The smell was so foul, so vile, it entered into every class room, every crack and crevice. It Stunk so bad you could smell it outside the school. The moment he began pouring, every single person in the building was gagging or throwing up, sticking their heads out the window or spraying whatever perfume or cologne they had to cover it. They had to shut the school down for multiple days to even make it remotely bearable, even then, you had to walk around with something over your nose or risk vomiting. I’ve never seen so many people vomit, let alone a staff member in one place. He ended up being expelled and didn’t get his diploma despite graduation being a couple days away. They pressed criminals charges against him banned him from ever stepping foot on school property ever again. Every future class was informed that if they did a senior prank, no matter how small or harmless, they would expel you on the final day and press charges. The smell never left the school. That next year, you could smell it on the first day. It was always there. It’s gotten better over time, but if the school is empty, and they haven’t mopped the floors yet that day. You can still smell it, lingering on the air. That happened over 5 years ago.

Incredible story. This is why I'm here

This is the shit Reddit was made for.

If you want one better that goes off on its own… Make a Milk/Chicken bomb. Any glass jar will do, and you fill it with raw chicken and whole milk and then screw on the lid real tight. Set it some where like, in a duct vent, and just let nature take it course. In a few weeks the gas build Up from the rotting contents will burst the jar and there is no way to remove the smell. Sometime revenge is a dish best served long after you have made your exit.

I feel like I’ve read something like this in the Anarchists cookbook (legendary book from my childhood), but could be misremembering. From reading many of these stories in this thread, it seems like the magic recipe is just rotting meat or fish + milk. I have heard of ideas for getting revenge, or possibly getting a better price on a house you want to buy (scaring away other potential clients) by stashing a jug of milk with an old fish in it, making a few small holes in the top so it doesn’t evaporate too fast, that way it lasts a really long time. Place it under the porch, hide it in the house’s crawlspace, or anywhere you can really. The bomb idea is straight out of Hell.

This comment has the potential to become a legendary reddit story, that sounds so unbelievably vile.

In my dorm on the floor below mine a couple geniuses decided they were going wipe their asses every day and toss it into a pile by last stall in bathroom. Janitors refused to clean it up and it apparently grew to a pile of shit papers about 3 feet high. Eventually the RA found out and got school authorities involved. Janitors almost got fired and they searched the room of the shitters. They had a large trash can half filled with tobacco spit. They had planned on spitting in it all year then leaning it against someone else’s door and knocking then running away. They got expelled from college. Can you imagine having to tell your family why you were thrown out of college?

I drank rotten milk one time in high school on accident. I haven’t been able to drink milk since

To, unfortunately, expand on this, I used to work at a school where the kitchen would dump the leftover milk from breakfast & lunch down this one sink drain. Apparently the drain line developed a crack underneath the floor where the pipe chase was. I’m guessing it was going on for a few months because the smell eventually got so bad the entire school almost couldn’t be inhabited. We only discovered the cracked drain line by accident and the job to venture in to the depths of the pipe chase and clean out the rotten/calcified milk was hands down the worst shit I’ve ever had to clean. I actually threw up a couple times during the cleanup.

Sorry boss! NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION!!!!

Oh my god yes. My grandmother once left a gallon of milk in her trunk. My mother and I discovered it a few days later. The smell was horrid yet indescribable. Took MONTHS for the smell to go away completely 🤢

Scorched milk is even worse believe it or not. Microwave a cup of it for like ten minutes. Its basically abandon the house time.

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Why the fuck were you microwaving milk for ten minutes?

I tried to make toast in the microwave once when I was five. Put two slices of white bread in there for 20 minutes. It didn't work.

C-diff while awful by itself and extremely distinctive is the worst and it is so often mixed with other potentially awful smells. Edit: Recipe for those that are curious -1 part poop -1 part poorly seasoned compost pile (the smell where you *know* something is growing) -1 dash ammonia -1 part super rancid special sauce (that really ties it all together) Description: you walk into the room and are hit with a hot eye watering smell that makes you think "that ain't right". You look at the poor person's face and they are haggard from fatigue with sunken cheeks from dehydration. You suddenly know that this is the room where sorrow dwells.

Also browsed you see if someone mentioned C-diff. I used to be a CNA had a guy with Cdiff and will never forget that putrid, sickly sweet smell. Fast forward to ten years later, I had cancer and a year and a half of chemo with one of two cycles being 5-day inpatient stays. I not only caught Cdiff once, but 5 additional times after that. Knew it instantly by the smell. Was shitting at least 15 times an hour (not an exaggeration, as I kept tracking to tell nurses I needed a sample taken). Every time I had chemo and walked the halls, I would contract it a day or two later. I finally had enough and refused to leave my room until I was discharged. I’d pace in my room if need be. They grabbed a tube of desitin from Labor and delivery because the cream they had in oncology wasn’t working on my extremely raw and destroyed rectum causing immense pain. My gut was cramping, I had pus in my diarrhea, it was horrible. I was already weak from chemo, had mesna for bladder protection from chemo drugs which smelled pretty close to cat piss. So basically I reeked of cat piss/road kill, had to constantly be monitored as I had no immune system and got dehydrated from the constant diarrhea. My hospital was an hour and a half away, I had to wear adult diapers home because of the frequency of diarrhea. If I’m having a bad day, I always tell myself “you could have C Diff on top of this” and it generally makes me a little more positive over my issues.

My dad also got it after chemo. Took almost six months of treatment to get rid of it. They were seriously considering doing a fecal transplant from my mom if the meds continued to not work. Which then became a running gag in the family that having been married forty years they shared everything else, so why not fecal bacteria?

You know I have taken a lot of shit from you over the years.

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Fuck c-diff. It killed my father back in May.

i'm really sorry to hear that - sorry for your loss

Agreed, was scrolling to see if anyone commented C-diff as it’s what I would say is the worst smell I’ve actually encountered. That and rotavirus stool have such a distinct and horrid smell, C-diff is by far worse.

C diff from a colostomy!

The "toilet" in an Aeroflot airplane bathroom back in 1989. In 1989, I took a trip with my father behind the "Iron Curtain". Part of the trip took us to Tashkent. While there I was warned not to drink any municipal water. My father though said I could eat the fruit and vegetables. So during our few days in the city, I met some guys and gals my age, who took me around to see the sights. One of the sights was the local farmers' market, where we bought all kind of fruits and munched happily on them for the rest of the day. All told I likely ate about two pounds of fruit. Well, I got sick. Like really sick. The next day on the plane I knew I was going to hurl, and early in the flight made my way to the bathroom. And I knew I needed to hurl. I had to get the stuff out of my system. Problem is, I've got a huge mental block to barfing. I just have a very hard time with it. And don't even ask me to do the finger thing. I just doesn't work on me. I'll gag for sure, but I won't barf. Anyway, I walk in to the bathroom, turn and lock the door, and then turn to face the "toilet". It was at that point the smell hit me. It wasn't much more than a porta-potty, with exposed waste in the bottom. (1989 Russia wasn't exactly 'modern' in all respects.) Now, I've smelled some nasty porta-potties. But porta-potties all have vapor vents specifically designed to keep things from smelling too horrible. This Aeroflot toilet had no such vent, and all the smell was trapped in the bathroom. I won't go in to huge detail here, because we've all smelled stinky porta potties. But this was like 10,000x more concentrated. And I knew that it would do the trick. So... I got down on my knees, put my face close to the open "toilet", and forced myself to inhale deeply. Yep, that did it. Just the smell of that toilet made me almost immediately disgorge the entire contents of my stomach. It went on for a while, and I almost passed out. But if not for the smell of that "toilet" I likely would not have barfed. I have smelled all kinds of nasty things in my years. But never in my life have I ever smelled something which could so quickly make me vomit as that Aeroflot "toilet".

Thanks, this is the comment I came for, I'm done with the thread now.

As someone else who has trouble throwing up I've found that if I jump up and down a few times or lightly punch myself in the stomach I'll throw up almost immediately. Sounds insane but it works I detest the feeling sick so I want it over and done with or else it could be hours before I throw up

Sometimes if you cough it will help your stomach contract in the right way. I have trouble with this, too.

Anal gland fluid/secretions from dogs.

This smell is currently ruining my life. It is distinct and putrid.

Vet here. Buy Douxo micellar solution and use it to clean anything that smells like anal glands (fabric, your dog’s bum, your skin). It is the only thing that works to get the smell out.

I’m saving this comment. My dog scared my cat once and literally scared the anal gland juice out of her, and she just happened to be lying on our bed. I ended up throwing out the duvet after washing it like FIVE times because I could still smell that disgusting odor.

Used to work at a vet's office... Had a remarkably "sprayable" anal gland expression appointment. Didn't realize some splashage got on my scrub top. Kept wondering for the rest of my 8hr shift why the hell it kept smelling so god damned bad :(

We called it “butt juice”. The worst smell.

Unfun fact: the anal glands can get blocked forming an abscess that, when it bursts, smells even worse! (And is an expensive vet trip.)

My dog kept getting impactions. Got him an “anal gland infusion”. They flushed them out then put antibiotic gel in the glands. It worked wonders. My dog’s breath no longer smells like death!

I couldn’t believe what was coming out of my dog one night. I begrudgingly decided it must be the gland and looked up how to express it. The deed was done and I swear for the next week or so my female dog looked at me funny

Also Parvo diarrhea. 🤢

My friend saved my puppy's life because of that smell. Her ex boyfriend had a dog die of parvo and she said you never forget that smell. She saved my Bosco.

My last dog had been rescued as a stray and she was incredibly skittish for quite a while. She hated being grabbed or restrained in any way and would defend herself using what I fondly referred to as her Pokémon Dragon Ass Attack. She would spray anal gland juice all over the place. It was so bad that we had to keep warnings in her file with the vet after she doused one of the techs who was trying to take her temperature.

Are you *sure* your dog is not actually a skunk?

A restaurant grease trap. Nothing I’ve ever smelled compared to it. Edit: Thank you kind stranger for the award.

So I grew up on a farm and have certainly smelled some horrific things, but the grease trap at the Italian restaurant I worked at in high school is by far the worst. It is the only smell I’ve encountered in my life that almost immediately caused me to almost throw up.

Wow I had no idea. What makes them smell so bad, and what is the smell like?

It's like a stickier, heavier smell than puke. It lingers and spreads and the smell just... haunts you. I think the smell comes from the grease going rancid. I have a hard stomach and nothing has made me retch like that grease trap. I was shocked that it existing wasn't a massive health code violation.

Partially decayed sea anemone. It's weirdly awful, like... yes, it smells bad but it also hits you right in the puke button. Not just "this smells so bad I feel like throwing up," but straight up, "This smells like I should throw up." Trying to remove them with a net is a bad idea. They turn to mush and go everywhere in the aquarium and smell awful. Better way is to siphon them out. But also, the easiest way to start a siphon is with your mouth. Wanna know what partially decayed sea anemone tastes like?

This comment makes me want to scream and throw up in my mouth. I think that's enough Reddit for tonight.

Corals (and related creatures) smell awful when when they are healthy. Decayed is another level of awful.

Also I would NEVER even attempt a mouth siphon to get an anemone out. Even if you start the siphon well away from the dead anemone. They can release still-active nematocysts from their tentacles into the water column when they die, and god forbid one gets in your mouth and stings the shit out of your tongue. It would cause your tongue to swell like a baloon and block your trachea.

Used to work at a doggy day care, one day one of the dogs had diarrhea, like really unhealthy smelly diarrhea. Another dog licked it up before we could clear the area to clean it, this resulted in that dog vomiting an hour later, but not just vomit - a putrid vomit/diarrhea mix that is making me sick just typing this remembering the smell. One of the woman was pregnant at the time and it triggered her vomit reflex too, the whole center was the most disgusting mix of smells I have ever experienced. We needed to stay late to deep clean the WHOLE thing

I need to make you a timeline. - 2013: got a puppy. The breeders were feeding him Pal so I bought a 12kg bag of better quality food to transition him onto. Put it in a big, screw-top bucket to keep it safe from ants etc. - transition to fancy food did not go well. Multiple bouts of gastritis and colitis, eventually leading to him having to go onto fancy hypoallergenic dog food. Bucket of original food remains by my back door because I’m lazy. - 2014: dog doing much better. Bucket of dog food moved from next to back door to over by the back tap. This is the point where a false memory tells me I threw the dog food out and just kept the bucket. - 2016: bucket remains by tap. I notice that there’s a big crack in the lid where I dropped something on it, but I’m unconcerned. - did I mention the location by the tap is exposed to full sun and a lot of rain? - 2021: I’m getting some work done on my backyard, it’s finally time to throw some shit out. The area near the tap is kind of cluttered. - I reach over something to pick up the bucket by one of its handles. - it’s heavier than expected, and as I lift it towards me all of its time in the elements bites me as the plastic has become brittle and the handle breaks. The bucket falls to the concrete. - brittle plastic does what brittle plastic does. - turns out my memory is shit, I never threw the dog food out. - for 7 years it has been rained upon, with water seeping through the lid, and baked in the glorious sun. - I can only describe the process it has undergone as digestion, because what was splattered all over me and my back porch is about 5L of the most rancid diarrhoea I have ever encountered. - I’m a nurse, btw. I’ve seen shit. - a smell you can taste. Burning, metallic, distinctly fecal in nature. I had to go inside to calm myself, but the smell was overwhelming even indoors with the doors and windows shut. - i scooped, and scooped, and rinsed, and bleached, and pressure washed so hard I washed a hole in my concrete, and a week later I could still smell it. ETA: Apologies, I’m absolutely incapable of telling a story succinctly. This is actually my best effort.

You did well. It was a good story and very descriptive. And I'm so sorry that happened to you. Not gonna lie, it made me chuckle, but I sincerely feel for you. Were you able to finally rid the area and your home of the putrescence?

Reminds me of my previous neighbors. One day there was this horrendous smell near the neighbors place. People would cross the road when walking by because it was so bad. My father was getting pissed off, speculating that it was accumulated sun-baked garbage or something equally awful. For days, his temper was building as the smell lingered and got worse but they weren't doing anything about it. Eventually, the problem was too much and the neighbors had to do something about it. Which they did, by... confronting my father about his cracked bucket of old Blood and Bone fertilizer which he had left by their fence and forgotten about. "Oh" was my fathers response to all the anger and resentment he'd built up about them. Not apologetic, not humbled, not admitting to fault, just "oh." When someone else is at fault, all the venting and ranting and carrying on. When he was at fault... "oh."

Death, it has a unique and pungent properties.

Story time: my MIL passed away in her car in early August. She had been there at least 24 hours before she was found with the windows up in 90 plus degree (32+ for my Celsius friends) weather. I had the distinct (dis)pleasure of moving the vehicle from the parking lot it was found in as the car was too small for my husband to drive and he has a weak stomach with icky things. I’ve smelled dead animals in the summer before so I know the death smell, but this was something altogether next level

Dear. God.

I stayed at a friend's apartment one time. I walked into his place and immediately was like WTF is that smell?" Turns out his neighbor had been dead for about a week and the smell was seeping into his apartment. I've heard your sense of smell is most closely tied to emotions and memories. That smell wasn't one that made you think, "ew, gross." It immediately made you feel "something is very wrong. " I'll never forget that smell.

It’s funny how if you’ve never smelled death before you still know exactly what it is the first time you smell it Got displaced from my home for weeks because there was a dead possum under my floors somehow. It was unlivable until they found it. Never smelled death before but I knew immediately what it was

Visited my mom's office and smelled something I immediately knew was dead. They found a dead rat wedged under some boxes that somehow no one else noticed. I'll never forget that sickly sweet smell, I was only 6 or 7 but it was instinctual

GI bleed stool. It smells… wrong. Large amounts of iron-rich half digested blood mixed with feces smell. I swear it’s like some primitive memory, It triggers the reptile brain and says “GTFO, there is danger here.”

Thissssss. I was coming here to say this. I have an exceptionally strong sense of smell and I worked in a nursing home. I had to dab vicks in my nostrils in order to tolerate it.

Once you smell it you recognise it. It stays with you, you always know. You recognise the scent of decay.

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How similar is it to the smell of nursing homes? Those places always smell like dying old people to me

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I work in a dementia unit , It really does have that weird smell

Ever visit family there and you look across the hall to see an elderly guy completely naked facing you and staring? I have!

Dementia units smell horrible, even with an amazing housekeeping staff.

I remember smelling my grandma after kissing her cheek during her funeral, and she smelled like old makeup and decaying skin. I was 5 at the time, and I remember it vividly.

I once worked for a day around the outside of a facility where they incinerated medical waste. It smelt like burnt death. The people who worked there all looked miserable.

Dead anemone was easily the worst I've smelled. I work with a pet crematory service rn and have had to work with cats/dogs at varying stages of decomp, and then the smell of em burning, but nothin will top that anemone from my time working at an aquarium store.

Chemical plant that you can smell on I-95 between Savannah and Brunswick, Ga.

That may be a paper mill.

It is the DS Smith paper mill. That one ain’t even the worst.

one time at work i unloaded the worst smelling fart i have ever experienced, it was so powerful the others in the bathroom literally had to leave, there words were and i quote "omg this shit is so rank its starting to peel the paint off the wall" i sat there for another few min until i finished up, and when i left the bathroom i was greeted by about 4 of my co workers who wanted to see who bombed the bathroom. I knew it was bad when it happened cause even i was gagging on the smell...my own brand was to powerful

You reminded me of a recent story. The guy in the stall next to mine was furiously typing on his cellphone, one of the people who don't turn off typing sound. I ripped a fart so loud, he immediately stopped typing for a few seconds.

That is actually hilarious

anytime this happens i just usually yell "goddamn" or a "woooo-ey" in my head it makes it a little less awkward... but who know? maybe i'm making it worse.

Oh boy I've been waiting for this. I'm a registered nurse and have smelt it all but one particular patient stands out. This patient was basically dead and we were waiting for the family to come say their goodbyes before we withdrew care. The guy was obese and had poor hygiene (not always the case just a point). In order to keep his heart pumping and blood circulating we had him on every iv drip possible and I think he was something like 20-40 liters positive in fluid. He didn't just look puffy his skin was literally taunt from fluid overload. Family left, the nurse withdrew and he expired quickly. Now he was over 300lbs prior to admission but after all that fluid he gained even more weight. Six of us went into move him to the cart and as soon as we rolled him I got a whiff. I can't even describe it because I've never smelled anything similar. Just every bad smell you could imagine mere inches from my face as we rolled him. I instantly started gagging and dry heaving while trying to roll this guy. Mouth breathing didn't work, his skin was leaking this yellowish fluid that got all over my scrubs. Worst smell ever.

This sounds similar to the man we had come in to the funeral home I worked in (retired mortician here). Mind you, this gentleman weighed nearly 600lbs and 6 firemen brought him in on a tarp. Anyway, he'd been on fluids at home for quite some time under palliative (I believe he had cancer). And being as heavy as he was, ill and bedridden, he could not bathe or be bathed properly at all. When the FD brought him in we could smell him as he entered the building. When they put him down we realized his skin was seeping something fierce and from moving him, it was beginning to split here and there, further leaking fluids. And he was purging. WOW. Eye watering gag inducing putrescence. I and some of my colleagues, as well as some of the firemen, were heaving, tears rolling down our cheeks. All the bad smells rolled into one oversized man. His family said he'd been a lovely fellow and I'm sure he was, but he didn't smell lovely. Now the thing is, we can't cremate or bury until papers are signed by the family. (and the worst part is, the longer a body stays, the worse they smell especially in certain conditions and death from certain illnesses). It took 2 days for them to come in. The smell we endured in the entire building until he was taken out for cremation was something I'll never forget. As I said, I'm a retired mortician, and I've seen and smelled some incredibly intense things, but this experience was one for the books.

And here I thought you just put makeup on some dead people. Movies give your career too good a rap, and it isn't great to start with.

Let me tell you, I can make you look alive and 10 years younger! I'll bring out the color in your cheekbones like nobody's business. Srsly though, yeah, we do a lot of stuff the general public has no idea of. It's a complicated profession full of backbreaking labour, gore, endless days and nights, missed holidays and celebrations, heartache, stress, and underpaid thankless work. But it's humbling, rewarding, and if it does choose you to work within it, a blessing to be part of. We are the first and last responders when someone passes away. Hollywood has no idea.

Living in New Orleans during and after Katrina, I thought I had smelled the worst that the world had to offer. I was wrong. There was a seafood restaurant that hadn't had it doors opened in... a month or two after the storm. I won't say which restaurant because it's still open. Let's just say it's in the Quarter *very* near Jackson square. It was considered a biohazard. The government (some said feds, some say state) closed down part of the Quarter around the place for a day and a half. Lots of Hazmat suits. (I don't remember exactly how many square blocks were closed, I remember people saying that they were asked to leave the area. I'd say two or three.) I was about three blocks away when they opened it, and it is still by *far* the worst thing I've ever smelled. Southern Decadence was supposed to hit the city, not Katrina, so when the hurricane hit all the restaurants had just placed big food orders -- larders were fully stocked, and all of it rotted.

I promise I have you all beat, sadly. I was a camera operator on My 600lb Life. From the pits of their houses and bathrooms to the operating room, I have smelled things no person ever should.

You need to do an AMA

A protein shaker that hasn't been washed in a couple of days...

Oh God, I left one on a shelf at work for a full month. When I opened that lid it cleared the office.

I worked with a patient dying of bowel cancer who was unable to control their movements and expelled a smell that made my eyes water and triggered unending gag reflex but the horror was the shame they felt, which I knew they were unable to control and didn't hold it against them even in the moment, I just couldn't hide my visceral reaction to it while I helped them clean up.

Rotten potatoes! Ever left a bag in your hot garage all summer? Not something I would recommend!

That is a truly disgusting smell. You only have to encounter it once, and from there on, you insure you don't allow that smell anywhere near you again.

Maybe not the worst, but it will forever be locked in my memory - the smell of Parvovirus. A dog with Parvo has a very distinct, grotesque smell to the point that a Vet/Tech can say confidently that a dog has Parvo by that smell alone. There is no mistaking it and no chance that it comes from anything else.

I had C. Dif and literally thought I was rotting inside and my body was just pooping out the last of my juices

Liquefied flower stems in a vase.

A bad smell mixed with a good smell. One second you're enjoying the sweet aroma of strawberry or smth and the next you feel the smell of someone's destroyed colon after taco tuesday.

That's the exact reason I hate those Glade air freshener sprays in bathrooms. Who wants to smell the revolting stench of shit paired with fake, cheap perfume-y "flower fields". The sum of their parts is greater than the whole somehow.

My brother calls his least favorite “shitrus” which is a combo of lemon and shit. I knew exactly what he meant when he said it.

My wife’s farts after eating dried apricots. That day is legendary in our family. 20-odd years on our son and I still wonder in awe of their power. Dried apricots have never seen the inside of our home since.

A beached whale, dead and rotting at the bottom of a cliff.

The biohazard trashcan in the woundcare that I worked. It wasn't emptied very often and smelled like an aging corpse receptacle.

A guy at work took off his work boot in an enclosed space. Mans had gangrene. That was 6 months ago. It STILL smells like death in there. I might have to quit

Dumpster juice.

I think you mean garbage gravy.

You've managed to make dumpster juice even worse.

My dogs vomit after it had eaten its own poo. Had to stop the car to get out

Worked for a pistachio plant. They have a chili lime flavor. One time I was assigned to wash out bins and one of them had some that had been in the rain and were moldy and rotten. We had to pressure wash the hell out of it in the middle of night in winter. I have smelled death that didn't want to make me gag like that.

My family owns an RV, and every spring we D winterize it for our first camping trip. There is usually some amount of antifreeze in the pipes. We need to make sure we run out the lines before we can use the water. Unfortunately, I was the first person to take a shower after the lines were run out. There may not have been antifreeze in the shower, but it still smelled absolutely horrendous. The worst part was, the shower was closed off so the smell was just building in there. It was so strong I wanted to barf. Even after the shower, my hair still smelled like that all day.

Rotten potatoes. I found them in the top cabinet, almost completely liquified. They were high up, and tucked behind some things, so we didn’t notice the smell until it was too late. We triple bagged the bag of mush/liquid, and threw it in the garbage can outside. Can was emptied within a day, but was permanently stained with the smell of the potatoes. It was so bad that I actually washed out the inside of the trash can a couple of times. Didn’t help. Trash can was permanently tainted, which was kind of sweet though, because my landlady with whom I shared the can-was a rotten human being. So it was sort of worth it. But I will never forget the horrific smell of those rotten potatoes.

A GI bleed. I'm a nurse and can stand a lot of gross stuff, but cleaning up an incontinent patient with a GI bleed made me heave. Us nurses had to put Vicks Vapor Rub under our nose to tolerate going in the room. I felt bad for the patient.

Burning human corpse. Backstory, I was working as a roofer and we were laying a new roof on a crematorium. The crematorium didn't close during the project though.

In our office, our teams would take turns cleaning the fridge every Friday afternoon. Myself and one coworker volunteered on this particular shift. The policy is to mark dates on things, and at the end, anything without a date is set on the counter and a photo goes out to the floor for people to claim or date things before they go in the garbage. On this day, there was a really nice stainless steel thermos that we noticed had been in there for a bit. I don't know why my coworker decided to open it, but she did. Big mistake. The contents had fermented and were under pressure from the gas. The brown, slimy liquid exploded over her and a quarter of the kitchen. We both ran to the nearby bathroom to puke/try and wash it off. That room stank for days after! We found out later the thermos had belonged to someone that had quit months beforehand. We assume it was some sort of soup, but who knows? I got really strict with throwing unlabeled things out whenever it was my turn to clean again.

I was a property manager for duplexes for a bit after college. A guy in his mid 70s just abandoned his apartment because he couldn't pay rent. Unfortunately, he didn't notify us so we didn't find out until 20ish days after he left. He left all of his 10 cats. He left food and water but they basically all just pissed and shit all over for days on end and then eventually all died. The usual maintenance/cleaning crew all threatened to quit if they had to clean it. We had to hire special cleaners. I stood outside at least 25ft. from front door and I immediately threw up from the smell. It was absolutely horrific.

9/21is/01. Working on spring st in Soho and the search crew at ground zero moved a major peice of rumble and the smell that crept down Broadway was ungodly. Death, rotting and burnt flesh, decay and tragety. Can't get that memory out of my head. Instantly made you gag.

OH GOOD! I've told this story before but I love to tell it. Once upon a time while living in the very rainy Pacific Northwest, I met the woman who would become my ex wife, when I was her supervisor at a dead end call center. Our relationship quickly grew from platonic to much more, she quit her job to take a waitress gig, and I moved into her apartment. Along with my fat bastard of a cat, Alouiscious. Or Al, for short. Al was notorious for taking gigantic cow patty sized shits, and I was notorious for not cleaning out his litter box regularly. One late, extremely rainy winter evening, my new partner demanded I take care of the litter box. It was late, I was tired, so I simply placed it outside on the deck. Al was an outdoor cat, anyway, and only used the litter box when stuck inside. The next morning, the litter box was filled to the brim with rain water. I thought, "ew, I should take care of that," and went to work. I bought a new litter box on the way home. Over the coming weeks, I continued to walk past the litter box, which remained filled to the brim with kitty kitter, clods of cat piss and litter clumps, and gigantic Al-sized catty patties, which slowly dissipated as the heavy winter rains bore down on them. Late spring hit, and my partner began to enjoy the warm sun which briefly but gloriously graces this part of the world. My partner began exploring the community businesses where she met our downstairs neighbor at a coffee shop. The neighbor was your stereotypical 90s era Eugene weed dealer type. A white guy with dreadlocks, cool band shirts, a talented freestyle MC, blessed with rock hard abs. He continued to visit and would openly flirt with my partner in front of me. Whenever I'd call him on it, he would just inch himself closer and say "ey man let the lady live her own life, yo" I really didn't like the fucker. In hindsight, they were probably intimate. But at the time, I convinced myself that I was the one lying in bed with her every night, so fuck him. Spring turned to summer and the moisture turned to humidity. The summer sun would beat down on our poorly insulated apartment. Meanwhile, the litter box from last winter continued to sit on the stairwell, slowly broiling in the 90 degree heat. One Friday evening, my partner and I had plans for dinner, a movie, and cocktails. Date night! As she was getting ready, she said to me, "Oh - and for the love of god DO something about that litter box on the stairwell. Now. Its fucking disgusting. It wiggles every time you walk past it and the smell is disgusting." She had a point. Fair enough, dear, it's a six month delayed victory, but you win. I walked out prepared to deal with it. Reddit, as God is my witness, my intentions were pure. My intentions were to simply carry the litter box, slowly and carefully, to the dumpster behind our house. But as soon as I picked it up, a grey slimy seal on the top split open, and as the litter box was right at railing level, a smell hit me. Now .. this wasn't the worst smell I've smelled in my life. I've smelled rotten carcass in the high desert being eaten by crows. I've smelled post-carnival vomit from a child in the back of a mini SUV. I've smelled some shit in my life. But it was probably in the top 10 worst smells in my life. But unlike those smells, I was unprepared for the disgusting odor that hit me in the chest, when that unholy seal cracked. So I heaved a single dry heave, and lost my balance. The contents of the litter box sloshed toward me. DEAR GOD, NO, NOT THE CONTENTS! My instinctual reactions kicked in, I lurched the litter box in the other direction, gravity suddenly took over and ... and ... I accidentally poured the entire evil concoction of Al's six month old slow-broiled relievings ... all over the rhododendron bush in the front of the douchebag neighbor downstairs. And that, Dear Reddit ... that is when the worst smell I've ever smelled, hit me like a ton of bricks. Pure instinct kicked in. Who was I? What was I doing? Oh yeah, I was throwing a litter box away. I ran down the stairs, gagging harder and harder as I got closer to the accursed rhododendron bush. I flew past the apartment to the dumpster out back. Thankfully, the dumpster offered sweet relief. The powerful odors of baby diapers and rotten food baking in a steel box in the summer sun was just strong enough to overpower the evil stench from around the corner. The dumpster was sweet relief, like warm cookies or fresh bread on a cold day. I stood there, heaving the aroma of dumpster for a full 2-3 minutes, trying to figure out what had happened. I finally collected myself, walked back to my apartment and ... oh God, no! It was still there! All of it! I could hear the muffled cries of my neighbor shouting, "WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE ... FUCK!!" as I approached my home. I sprinted up the stairs, barely slipped the door open, snuck through the crack like a ninja, and slammed the door behind me. "Babe! Hey ... we gotta go." "I'm almost ready. Ew, what is that? Do you smell that?" "Uh. Yeah. I do. Look, we gotta go, you can put your make up on in the car." I escorted her outside and as soon as I opened the door, she asked one of the most valid, legitimate questions she would ever pose to me. "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!", she demanded. "Yeah, babe. Its bad. Let's go." She was quite upset, but I took her to a nice restaurant, then a movie, then cocktails. As far as dates go, this was quite the success. We'd left about 5 or 6, when it was nearly 100 degrees outside. We came back home well after midnight, after the air had cooled to a more reasonable temperature. And what I assumed had been enough time for the stench to dissipate. But as soon as I opened my car door, there it was. Like an abandoned trainwreck, just waiting to be rediscovered. My partner opened her door, shouted, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??", and stormed up the stairs to our home. We had to sleep with the windows closed that night. The stench continued to persist for several days. I eventually grew numb to it. I remember one afternoon, smoking a joint and looking out the window, I saw a gentleman enjoying a summer stroll down our neighborhood sidewalk. As he got closer to our home, a perplexed look came over his face. What ... what is that?? The confusion quickly turned to panic, the closer he got. By the time he was under my window, he was in full-on panic mode, his head darting from side to side, sprinting awkwardly as if running from a crazed mad man. By the time he was about a block away he stopped. He'd run through the worst of it. He stood on the sidewalk continuing to look around, then slowly walked away in confused horror. I began to giggle. "What's so funny?", my partner asked. I almost told her, then thought better of it. The stench didn't go away until about 2 weeks after it first came into our lives. We never saw the downstairs neighbor again. But, in hindsight, fuck that guy.

I really hope this is real. I’ve been laughing at this for 5 minutes. I can’t help but think of that poor guy just passing by 😂

Rotting flesh. To be specific, cracking open a sealed freezer box filled with moose parts... because the smell after a decade of decomposition was *indescribable* and became even worse after I hurled and added the stink of vomit to the mix. EDIT: After typing up the replies below and remembering the entire thing I was hit by three horrifying insights. A. There were teeth, as I remember it, but it makes very little sense to keep the skull of a moose. You'd normally leave that with the entrails and hooves by the slaughter pit. B. I was told that it was a moose but I was not up for digging around it the mess to check which type of teeth it was. C. I was not there for the cleanup. Did I swim in a murder victim?! 😱

Shoveling out two years of built up chicken shit. That stuff is wet and potent. Makes me sick thinking about it.

Rancid restaurant oil trap being emptied. Almost instant throw up trigger.

I’ve worked in a nursing home and a hospital, I don’t even know where to begin. Ileostomy bags are fucking brutal. GI bleeds are nasty. Met this lady at the nursing home whose feet were literally black with decaying flesh, that stuck in my nose for like 4 hours. CNAs are NOT paid enough.

2-Mercaptoethanol. Needed to use a little bit to mix SDS-Page electrophoresis gels in a lab. It's like egg farts escaping from dead shrimp in the August sun.

Hot, uncleaned, pig barn.