What is the worst thing you've ever smelled?

[Maistre Gracey]

Can't say for sure, but my wife farted in her sleep last week and that could rival anything described here.

MG

 

[E&Cmom]

I am nurse so I have smelled a lot of bad things. I remeber in oarticular once doing a really band wound dressing that was awful.

 

[bcla]

I'm sorry but this made me crack up laughing out loud!!

ETA: I just got to the rest of your post to the "the smell of a thousand farts." Oh my goodness

Durian is just one of those things where one wonders why something like that even exists. It's not allowed to be transported on public transportation in Singapore. My hotels in Thailand had clear signs that they weren't allowed in the hotel. A coworker originally from Indonesia insisted it's the greatest fruit in the world. It's pretty scary looking though, and people have died when one dropped from a tree.

The smell from an active volcano is pretty nasty, especially if you're upwind of a vent and at higher elevation. I heard the "smell of a thousand farts" comment from a Hawaiian. At Kilauea the worst smell where visitors can typically visit is at the Jagger Museum near Halemaumau Crater. The volcano is constantly venting sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide gases from there. The road gets closed when the levels are bad enough that people can literally pass out from the gasses. When I visited, it really did smell like a stadium full of people farted at the same time. Hawaiian mythology says that the goddess Pele created all the volcanoes. If she did, then she must eat Spam and beans on an industrial scale

One of these days I'm going to try to experience a corpse flower in bloom. We've got several in the area. I've heard the smell is exactly like the name suggests.

 

[bcla]

I am nurse so I have smelled a lot of bad things. I remeber in oarticular once doing a really band wound dressing that was awful.

I had a foam padded finger-splint once. Nobody at the hospital gave me instructions on when to take it off, so I kept it on until I saw a doctor. After a week and a half I was able to visit a hand specialist. By that time the smell close up was pretty funky.

I guess circuses were mentioned in another thread. I was at a Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas sitting near the front. The performers came out into the audience, including one guy balancing on my seat rest. He smelled like a huge armpit. I guess they had two performances a day and don't exactly want to wash off the bodymakeup.

 

[BLAZEY]

A house that DH & I were going to look at to buy. Pictures looked nice but were of the main floor. The tenants downstairs must have left something to die downstairs cause our realtor opened the front door and we took one whiff and closed the door. She called the listing agent and told him to come before another person opened that door. She said she would call the cops if he didn't show up due to the smell.

 

[AmazingGrace]

We had a cat with anal gland issues. She actually let loose on my pillow once.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I have a ranking of horrible animal poops.

Sea lion is the worst.
Cheetahs was second.
Bald eagles is third.

Then I'm guessing you've never had the pleasure of working with fishing cat poop. Oh, dear god...

 

[sonnyjane]

Then I'm guessing you've never had the pleasure of working with fishing cat poop. Oh, dear god...

Ha really?? No I haven't. But we did feed the cheetahs a little bit of fish as a variable. Anything that eats fish smells awful.

 

[ronandannette]

Race Rocks. I know it well! Summer is the worst. That's when the males develop their natural "musk" on top of the smell of the poop!

{{shudder}}

 

[ronandannette]

Then I'm guessing you've never had the pleasure of working with fishing cat poop. Oh, dear god...

And what, pray tell, is a fishing cat?

 

[sonnyjane]

And what, pray tell, is a fishing cat?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_cat

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Cat urine on a burner that got turned onto high. I was out with a friend. When we got home we were starving. She didn't realize that her VERY elderly cat had an "accident" on the stove and turned it on to boil water.

All of these nurse stories are making me question my change in major! Good thing I'm not super sensitive to smells.

 

[tvguy]

Or perhaps he got the idea from Silence of the Lambs.

All I know is all 5 of us who had to work there chose the dead rat smell over the Vapo Rub.

 

[Poohlove]

I hear that bear poop smells pretty bad but I've never never encountered it for myself.

Worst smell prior to last night was decaying mangroves in St John. Last night takes the cake though. We were welcomed back to New Jersey by the gag inducing odor, similar to rotten eggs on steroids, right along the Mets Life Stadium in north Jersey. Even with my eyes closed I know where we are when we are on that part of the turnpike. Always makes me that much more anxious to get back to thr southern half of the state.

 

[DawnM]

I have smelled several of the smells mentioned. Wounds/gangrene smells horrible!

And rotting flesh. I could never work in a morgue. Nope, nope, couldn't do it. Even if my kids were starving.....ok, *maybe* if my kids were starving, but......ick!

And durian. Singapore had laws about where you could eat it (they had boats that were called durian boats that went off shore a mile in order to eat them) but Indonesia had no such rules. I spent about 4 months in Indonesia and Singapore once, during durian season.

And this is going to sound weird, but I once toured a sugar factory in Africa, I can't remember which country at the moment. The smell was HORRIBLE! It was similar to a beer brewing factory (I don't care for that smell either) but much stronger.

 

[DennyCrane]

It involved a weekend in Thailand and that's about all I can, or care to explain.

 

[Michelle1992]

Another good one is the paper mill along I-95 in Georgia. Every we pass that section of 95 when we drive to/from Florida we both laugh uncontrollably...it's like a mega fart.

There's a paper mill about fifteen minutes from my house. I have to pinch my nose every time I drive by it. I don't go that way often, but when I do...PU!!!

 

[ronandannette]

There's a paper mill about fifteen minutes from my house. I have to pinch my nose every time I drive by it. I don't go that way often, but when I do...PU!!!

Yeah - there was a pulp mill in the region where I grew up. You could smell it for a 40 mile radius; especially on a cold, clear winter day. Not sure why that made it worse. It certainly smelled awful, and I never smelled it up close, but it wasn't near the most noxious thing I've ever encountered, unfortunately.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

The city of Decatur, Illinois. I do not know how people live there. (I guess it is not the worst smell, but it is awful. Maybe people who live there get used to it)

Seriously, though:

Walked into a house full of cats before that nobody would clean up after.

A fully stocked freezer with meat in a house that did not have electricity for several months.

Also, been around somebody with cdiff that too is beyond awful.

 

[bcla]

There's a paper mill about fifteen minutes from my house. I have to pinch my nose every time I drive by it. I don't go that way often, but when I do...PU!!!

There are some garbage dumps in my area. It's not really that bad, but it's all the time. Milpitas, CA is downwind of the Newberry Island Landfill. Milpitas has tech companies, astronomical home prices, and the smell of decomposing garbage. I've heard the place called Smellpitas.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loca...andfill-Say-Smell-is-Unberable-287470521.html

I've heard of some chilli pepper sauce factories that smell pretty intense. It may not be the smell itself, but the burning sensation. I heard of the sensation of arriving at the Tabasco factory in Louisiana. A reporter said the burning sensation in the eyes started even before she reached the entrance gate. Then there was the Huy Fong Foods plant in Irwindale, CA. They make the red hot sauce with the rooster. A judge actually ordered the place shut down, and the city was dealing with complaints even after that.

I have driven by the Gilroy Garlic Festival. It was only from the freeway that time, but they were cooking up tons of garlic. I've also been to the festival, and it didn't seem so bad once your own breath had the garlic stink.

I did see a police horse unleash a flood of urine. I was across the street, but the smell was pretty nasty.