What's that smell?

[Phoenix84]

For the last week or so my car has smelled funny, in a bad way.

Since I have to haul my garbage in my car to the dumpster, I thought perhaps some of it fell out, but I couldn't find it.

I just found the culprit, apparantly last week I forgot to take my milk inside, and it was in my trunk this whole time

So, have you ever encountered a smell you couldn't figure out what it belonged to? Did you ever find out?

[swamp]

Ewwww. DH lent his car to a friend once to get groceries, and the milk jug broke open in the trunk. The car smelled like sour milk from that day forward.

I had a sidkly sweet apple smell in my van about a month ago that was getting stronger. . I cleaned it out and found a rotten apple under my seat.

[milee]

In the back of my SUV, I carry supplies for all the things I do regularly - boxing gloves and hand wraps; sailing shoes and gloves; assorted sailing ropes, lines and blocks; rags for cleaning the boats; change of clothes, hat and sungear; life jacket; tool kit. So although it's organized, there's a lot of stuff.

For a while there was an unidentified bad smell, so I took everything out and sanitized it over a period of a couple of weeks. That didn't solve the problem. A few days later, I had to get a tool out of one of the tool caddies and found the rotted remains of a red bell pepper - must have fallen out of a grocery bag weeks ago. Bleck.

I changed the organization system a bit after that...

[raeoflyte]

My fil's car started to smell like ass. They finally found a sea bass that had been left in a styrofoam cooler after grocery shopping for at least a week. It had rotted through the cooler and into the car upholstery. The dealership couldn't get the smell out without re-upholstering the car, so fil traded it in. Took years before he owned up to why that car disappeared so suddenly.

[Deleted]

Not in my car, but in my house, yes. The conversation usually goes like this:

Me: Something in our house smells like rotten potatoes.

Me: Oh, wait, that is what it is. There are some potatoes in the bottom cabinet.

[Deleted]

Aug 5, 2012 20:44:02 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

Not in my car, but in my house, yes. The conversation usually goes like this:

Me: Something in our house smells like rotten potatoes.

Me: Oh, wait, that is what it is. There are some potatoes in the bottom cabinet.

[Apple]

When we went to Ireland my parents used my car to shuttle DS and I home from the airport. My car reeked after that for a week and I couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from. I finally found it--turns out on the way to the airport they stopped for burgers and ate in the car--I found onions that had worked their way under the floor mat. Nok-out is some good stuff.

[Deleted]

I had a rat die in the AC part of my car. We could never find it. I tried going over really bumpy roads to shake it loose, etc... Ewww... nothing like the smell of dead in the middle of summer every time you turn on the AC. When I would park you could smell my car. It was horrible.

[susanb]

Pheonix, I have two stinky confessions to make....

1. In college, one of my girlfriends and I spent a summer traveling up and down the Oregon coast. We would work during the week, travel on the weekends, and sleep in the back of her SUV to save money. It was stinky. Really stinky. We searched and searched for the smell, but it wasn't until the end of the summer that we found eggs and bacon between the carpet and the tire. Thank goodness for alcohol.

2. Last summer DH and I drove to LA. My car was stinky. I looked everywhere for the source of my stink before the trip, but came up empty. We stayed in a fancy hotel where you have to valet your car. It was bad enough that I had to valet my old Honda, but when you add to that the fact that the valet always drove up with his head out and the window down, it was down right embarrassing. We found an Amy's burrito when we were unloading our luggage back at home

[973beachbum]

The worst smell I ever had in the house or car came from my refrigerator.

It was such a pain to figure out because the fridge was clean and nothing in it was old. It turned out the culprit was some brocolli I had bought just a couple of days before that went bad super quick. I kept looking for something that looked like it was old and it wasn't.

Who knew brocolli that still looked good could smell so bad?

[thyme4change]

There was a few days where every time I walked into the kitchen I would take the garbage out - but for some reason, the smell persisted. One day at work my husband called and said "I decided I was going to figure out why the kitchen smelled, and started triangulating on the stench. Remember the mouse trap you put behind the stove? It worked." Glad he did that while I was sitting at my desk earning some money.

[andi9899]

I had a funny smell in the house and no one could smell it but me for a couple of days. Turns out that Old Dude had set a glue trap for spiders and caught a mouse instead. Ewww!

[mandyms]

Kind of had the same issue, Phoenix. I had a weird spoiled milk/parmesean cheese smell in the car for 3-4 weeks. I though DD had spilled some milk in the back seat, so I was fabreezing like crazy. Turned out a ball of fresh mozzarella had fallen out of the grocery bags and hid in the corner of the trunk (in the middle of summer).

I was more upset about the wasted mozzarella than the smell it produced.

[Deleted]

There was a smell in my office one time and it took me forever to find the take out coffee with cream that someone had left on a filing cabinet. It looks like dairy products are the main culprits for this stuff.

[Phoenix84]

Yes that's likely what happened. In the trunk of the car the milk fell out of the bag and rolled into an obscure corner.

[zibazinski]

Okay, here's a good one from college. A frat guy cheated and dumped one of my friends right before a big formal that she had already bought a dress for. We went to a fancy restaurant and got from their garbage a lobster shell and put it in his car, well hidden. It took him weeks to figure out where that smell came from and according to the guys, his date and he smelled bad! Poetic justice.

[Bluerobin]

A few years ago on an extremely hot day, there was this strange smell on the side of the house. Sorta like spoiled milk, but much stronger. The neighbor next door had died in bed. The cats had been feeding on her for a few weeks............ The smell lasted for weeks after the body was removed.

[zibazinski]

[Tiny]

Other than rotten potatos or onions in my kitchen I got nothing. BUT, my SIL told me about her stinky car - she had her kids bring in the groceries. A package of chicken got left behind in the car. The car sat on the drive way in the sweltering summer sun for 2 days. She said she just about fainted from the stench when she opened the door... She aired out the car but couldn't find the source of the stench. After driving the Stinky Car for a week - she and kids took EVERYTHING out of the car that's when they found the chicken...
I can only imagine how bad this smelled.

Oh, just remembered! It took me a day or two to figure out the cat I adopted from the shelter had gas pretty bad gas-- He was called Stinky Boy until his innards settled down - he eventually got named Jupiter - after the planet - he's big, red and white, has an equatoral belt and a great red spot, and for a couple of months qualified as a "Gas Giant". Thankfully, he's no longer Stinky.

[thyme4change]

After driving the Stinky Car for a week - she and kids took EVERYTHING out of the car that's when they found the chicken...

I'm one of those people that don't use my car for storage. There are a few things in there - but the trunk is essentially empty. I do keep 5 cloth grocery bags, because otherwise I would forget them when I go to the store. I never really thought about it - but here is a reason I'm glad that it is always empty - you can see if soemthing falls out - for the most part.