Bad smells

[bgmnts]

I currently care for a mouse, because rodents are ace and deserve just as much care as cats ans dogs.

However, I've come to learn that mice fucking stink. They smell bad. If I were to describe the smell of a mouse cage it would be 'not very good'. In fact, it is fair to say that when I am next confronted with a bad smell, I will compare it to a mouse's stench. Smells will now be qualified as 'not as smelly as' or 'smellier than' a mouse.

What bad smells have you come across recently, and how did you counteract them?

[tao of wub]

A chest freezer insouciantly left broken for over six months whilst half full of liquefied rotten meats.

Removed all putrid liquid meats and meat residues with bucket and plastic dustpan.

Doused festering carcass of freezer in bleach and then gave it a really good hosing down.

Dragged out to street for council to take away.  They said it stank too much and I had to beg them.

None of this horror was my doing.  I don't even own any meat. 

2/10 would not do again if possible.

[Buelligan]

Mice smell because the have a constant loss urinary system, I believe.  And they think we stink!  Heh.

Two men came to my work yesterday to fit some shit in the kitchen.  One or both, I didn't sniff them up, smelt so pungently that even when (t)he(y)'d left the large and airy room, their musk lingered, overpowering all else, for a good half hour.  I'm not even lying.  That's a manly-man (or men), show Jordan a thing or two, so they would.

[ImmaculateClump]

If I were to describe the smell of a mouse cage it would be 'not very good'.

My friend at school made up this song about wanking and one of the lines was "rub it up and down until it smells like a birdcage".
As you were.

[idunnosomename]

"rub it up and down until it smells like a birdcage"..

turned out nice again!

[BlodwynPig]

I currently care for a mouse, because rodents are ace and deserve just as much care as cats ans dogs.

However, I've come to learn that mice fucking stink. They smell bad. If I were to describe the smell of a mouse cage it would be 'not very good'. In fact, it is fair to say that when I am next confronted with a bad smell, I will compare it to a mouse's stench. Smells will now be qualified as 'not as smelly as' or 'smellier than' a mouse.

What bad smells have you come across recently, and how did you counteract them?

Don't rub a gerbil's pussy after its given birth after I did as a child..yikes, the stench.

[Hand Solo]

A chest freezer insouciantly left broken for over six months whilst half full of liquefied rotten meats.

[lebowskibukowski]

Did a spot of voluntary work at a Funeral Directors during my recent furlough, and we were sent to collect one deceased gentleman from his home. He had sadly died in his bed and it was VERY hot in the room. There was also a full colostomy bag, and a torrent of browny-red liquid spurting from his ear like a geyser. The combination of all these factors was not very appealing nasally, if i'm honest...

[shiftwork2]

Did you still manage to knock one out though?

[shagatha crustie]

Rotten meat is the worst and most pervasive I have encountered. Many years ago when I shared a house, a plastic bag with some raw chicken in was left at the back of our fridge for god knows how long. A housemate disturbed the slumbering horror when he came in drunk one night and the entire ground floor of the house smelled appalling for genuinely months, even when the bag had been disposed of.

[tao of wub]

their musk lingered, overpowering all else

I had a landlord like that.  A huge reeking, wobbly barrel of a man.  He was fond of visiting my home while I was out for unknown reasons.  I'm not sure he ever did wash.

We always knew though because his stench would remain like a vengeful wraith.  A sort of deep sticky musk, like plasticene mixed with dog shit, that would seem to coat your tongue and nasal passages so you could experience it even after you left the house.

Hi Steve!

Some chemicals smell so bad that, even with a precautions like fume cupboards, the chemists using them become pariahs and banned from the buildings, banished to distant sheds in fields or on rooftops

[tao of wub]

the entire ground floor of the house smelled appalling for genuinely months

I had to chuck my boots away, they were knackered anyway lucky for me.

Meats rot to produce the appropriately named putrescine and cadaverine, which are both a string of hydrocarbon with an amine at each end.  They are very very smelly in tiny quantities, so you keep smelling them for months.  We have evolved to find this rotten horror disgusting.

Can only imagine the foulness that you experienced lebowskibukowski.  Think I would have got PTSD from that.

Anyway, I think that an acid like vinegar, preferably hot, would be effective as it should react with the amine to make a water soluble salt.  It would need to be cleaned with a detergent too as the fatty bits left tend to trap the amines and protect them from being washed away.

When I was cleaning the freezer I didn't really think as my brain was too busy retching.

The salt should be less smelly and water soluble so you can wash it better in water.

[Poobum]

I had five mice at once in a big rat cage, and yes they produce a pungent brew. As said, they're incontinent in a similar way to rats and will leave little dots of piss as they scamper, as a scent trail. My smell though is when one of my tiny mice babies developed a massive pus filled cyst on her ear that turned it spherical. She went to the vets of course. Had two vets work on her to lance it, poor little thing being held still by one, as the other pierced the cyst. An astounding amount of cottage cheese like pus was subsequently expressed with an horrid, almost sweet smell. After the procedure she sat in the middle of the vet's table covered in gore, shivering with pure shock, her beaded eyes expressing incomprehension at the horror that had just occurred. Antibiotics cleared it up almost miraculously thankfully, and I only had to squeeze pus from, and clean the infected ear once, before it healed. Then she developed two massive tumours mere months later and had to be put to sleep. Was very sad, she was a beautiful creature, but easily replaceable for around £10 from a reputable breeder.

[DrGreggles]

Dog food fucking stinks.

Been looking after a delightful Golden Retriever called Brewster this week.
I like him more than any person and I'm not looking forward to returning him tomorrow.
But I'll be glad to never open a tin of dog food again in my life.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

History all stinks of shit. History is not only the bin but the seedbank and ice core record of odiousness.

The Siege of Tyre that fucking stunk of shit. The Babington Plot: everyone involved and all the places featured stank of shit. Sex Pistols gig - stank of shit. Crimea - atmospheric strata defined by different extremely concentrated tiers of shit. Repealing the corn laws happened in a building an environment that notably stank of shit. The Hindenburg was a giant balloon that smelt of shit that crashed to ground, exploded and made everywhere else nearby smell of shit. The SAS remarked in 1980 how much like shit the siege of the Iranian Embassy in Kensington smelt of. Harold Larwood's cricket coffin smelt of shit. Confucius wrote every single word surrounded by an atmosphere of caked on shit festering on a hot day. Most naturalist writing such as Wordsworth is wish fulfilment for life to smell less like shit. Henry VIII was a man enveloped constantly by the stench of shit. Football referee David Elleray stank of shit.

[BlodwynPig]

Indolent!

[Replies From View]

There's no such thing as a bad smell, just a good smell that you don't like yet!

[Kelvin]

Pet rats. I lived temporarily at the house of someone who had a few, cleaned regularly, and the smell of urea was worse than even the most vile public toilet; just a constant eye watering bitterness that crept up through every floor of their house, peeled wallpaper and turned all innocence to sin. 

[Twonty Gostelow]

Dangerous stinks.
Invincible reeks.

[tao of wub]

a constant eye watering bitterness

Redolent of rodents.

Here is one from the chemists lab again, selenophenol, a straight from the nose description,

"The biggest stinker I have run across. . .Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material."

This is written about in a section of 'In the pipeline', a blog on chemistry, called, Things I wont work with, if you ever need to cheer yourself up about your own job.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-i-wont-work-with/page/3

[Blue Jam]

Dog food fucking stinks.

It smells far worse when it comes out the other end.

Been considering buying a flat and a couple of doggos recently and frankly I'd be happy to cook them a fresh meal every night.

[lebowskibukowski]

Can only imagine the foulness that you experienced lebowskibukowski.  Think I would have got PTSD from that.

Thought I coped with it pretty well at the time before having a delayed, very vivid nightmare about it four nights later. His resemblance to a White Walker probably didn't help...

[touchingcloth]

It smells far worse when it comes out the other end.

Been considering buying a flat and a couple of doggos recently and frankly I'd be happy to cook them a fresh meal every night.

It depends massively on the quality of the food. Our dog has been on good quality (high protein, rice rather than wheat for the small amount of carbs - cheaper foods are bulked out with wheat which dog digestive systems can't deal with brilliantly) for ages now and his shit don't stink, and smells like a neutral rose rather than dog poo poo poo. If you ever see those dog shits which are caramel rather than chocolate in colour and are soft and raggy in appearance - a type 5 on the Bristol scale - then odds are it will have that nasty dog shit smell and be caused by poor food, which is also the major cause of the dog smell you get in some owners' houses.

Now cats, on the other hand, are responsible for the worst smell I've encountered. When my cat's anal gland leaks it is fucking atrocious, and if it happens to get onto your skin or some soft furnishings it lingers for ages and ages, even after plentiful washing. I've never looked it up but I've always suspected that whatever nasty gunk they keep up there is a similar substance which was evolutionarily co-opted by skunks for their defende smell. Search YouTube for "expressing cat anal glands" if you want to test your vomit reflex, and that's without even being able to smell the rotten funkiness.

[Pink Gregory]

My friend at school made up this song about wanking and one of the lines was "rub it up and down until it smells like a birdcage".
As you were.

Reminded of Burroughs in the Soft Machine making repeated reference to 'damp, compost-heap smells'

[Blue Jam]

It depends massively on the quality of the food. Our dog has been on good quality (high protein, rice rather than wheat for the small amount of carbs - cheaper foods are bulked out with wheat which dog digestive systems can't deal with brilliantly) for ages now and his shit don't stink, and smells like a neutral rose rather than dog poo poo poo. If you ever see those dog shits which are caramel rather than chocolate in colour and are soft and raggy in appearance - a type 5 on the Bristol scale - then odds are it will have that nasty dog shit smell and be caused by poor food, which is also the major cause of the dog smell you get in some owners' houses.

I know exactly what you mean there. I can't remember what I fed my last dog but it me the cheapest stuff and it included some kind of posh dry food and we never got that with her.

The other day I was sat out in the park having a read when a doggo nearby decided to do a poo and that familiar cheap dog food stench drifted over. It smells like it's partly undigested, so it probably is the wheat, aye.

The worst canine smell I have experienced was in my local pub when a cute little Lhasa Apso dropped an absolute bomb. At least I think it was her- the stench was beyond anything a human could produce. I was quite impressed tbh.

What a lovely chat this has been...

[Blue Jam]

Here is one from the chemists lab again, selenophenol, a straight from the nose description,

"The biggest stinker I have run across. . .Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material."

This is written about in a section of 'In the pipeline', a blog on chemistry, called, Things I wont work with, if you ever need to cheer yourself up about your own job.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-i-wont-work-with/page/3

Beta-mercaptoethanol is the worst smell I work with, but thankfully most people remember to only use it in the fume hood so I rarely actually smell it. Of course we occasionally get a new student who forgets and leaves their gloves in the wrong bin afterwards and the tiny amount of beta-mercaptoethanol on them will end up stinking out the entire lab for a couple of days. It's a kind of burnt, oily sulphurous smell, kind of accrid and very very pungent and which makes you just want to skive off work until the rogue gloves are found and disposed of properly.

[steve98]

Now cats, on the other hand, are responsible for the worst smell I've encountered. When my cat's anal gland leaks it is fucking atrocious,

Are you sure she's leaking and not targeting you? Weaponizing her glands? Mine went through a phase of squirting me (and the computer) when I wouldn't let her sit on the keyboard. It's a ghastly smell, and it put me off her for a bit (but we're okay now.)

[Pingers]

Necrotic ulcers smell really vile.

The Tate & Lyle works at Silvertown used to emit a heady combination of festering laundry and decay, which in the 80s and 90s wasn't necessarily the worst thing about Silvertown

[Blue Jam]

Are you sure she's leaking and not targeting you? Weaponizing her glands? Mine went through a phase of squirting me (and the computer) when I wouldn't let her sit on the keyboard. It's a ghastly smell, and it put me off her for a bit (but we're okay now.)

Cats are dicks.

[Ray Travez]

Used to work as a cleaner on a ward of six operating theatres. Started work at 7.30am, the smell of cauterised flesh at that time really gives you a perk.

Now I think of it, I cleaned a lot of different wards- pathology labs, renal, A+E, and if there's one thing I'd say about the olfactory experience of a hospital, it's that it's pretty much uniformly bad. Who'da thunk it?

After that I went to work in a care home. What a treat that was.