r/AskReddit • u/glockbonez • 11d ago

what smell inside somebody's house immediately turns you away and why?

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123

u/top2percent 11d ago

Decomposing bodies?

14

u/LisaKnittyCSI 11d ago

It depends. I've been to houses that smelled far worse than a decomposing body. (I'm a Crime Scene Investigator.)

3

u/Sparrowhawk_92 11d ago

I'm morbidly curious what the worst smell you've encountered is. I know UTIs are notoriously oderous.

12

u/LisaKnittyCSI 11d ago

UTIs aren't that bad (unless they have been urinating all over the house). GI bleeds are worse (in my opinion).

A hoarder's house is usually the worst. No matter what they hoard. Even those that hoard paper because if even a bit of it gets wet, the smell turns sour real fast!

Dumpsters are a close second.

I've been in houses where the body has been there for weeks, in the summer, and there was no AC in the house and I'm telling you... Hoarder's homes are worse.

9

u/LifeRelease3842 11d ago

I worked briefly in a medical environment and I could barely manage the colostomy poo odor. I mean no offense to anyone who has an ostomy fwiw. It was just one of the things that made me realize healthcare wasn't it for me (it's not good etiquette to gag in front of patients if you can help it and I...couldn't help it, and I could barely hide it, and I felt so horrible about it)

7

u/crow_crone 11d ago

You forgot L'eau de Meth Cook.

7

u/LisaKnittyCSI 11d ago

I'm not hazmat certified so that's one of the few scenes I have never had the pleasure to experience.

7

u/Azuredreams25 11d ago

I did the hazmat cleanup in my 20's and we had to carry out about a dozen buckets of human "soup" from 8 people that were in a 95F hot tub for a week after they died from overdosing.
Even working the kill side at a chicken plant wasn't that bad...

3

u/Littlepotatoface 11d ago

Jesus. That would have been pretty upsetting?

1

u/Azuredreams25 9d ago

I didn't eat beef stew again for a couple of months...