Dear gods, that was the worst smell I’ve ever smelt.

[OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow]

Got some chalk paint. Shook it. Dd opened it, the lid popped off and the room was filled with the scent of death. Well, death if it rolled in slurry. (Apparently it can go off-what an understatement!)
Anything else you can think of that’s unexpectedly stinky?

I opened a tin of dog food and it fizzled and sprayed all over my kitchen 🤮
I've never smelled anything as bad in my entire life!
I bleached the entire kitchen and could still smell it faintly for weeks 🤮

To be clear - I had switched the machine on in the hope that the low slow bubbling would clean it and we'll, it just broadcasted the evil stench throughout the building.

I'm surprised Northern Gas Networks didn't have half the street dug up

The worst smell for me was being on search and recovery for a crash. Nothing quite JP4 fumes and burnt human flesh.

Actually I can beat my own post.
when I was little we were moving states in Australia. It was summer. Fridge was empty. Genius bil had been fishing... I was only 6 but I can still remember the reek and the look on mums face. New fridge too. Remember if anything was stinky in the comics with acid green wavy lines coming off it? Like that.
Similarly, my mum came to us for Christmas, we took her back, the door opened and this honk reached out the door. It was freezing so her central heating kicked in. Her fridge/freezer had died.
And a weird one, some rice, dry, in a canister. Opened the lid, arrrrgh! My mum wanted to wash the canister out to use again. I wanted to bury it in a lead lined coffin.

The smell from the abcess under DH's foot. He's diabetic and it had rotted right to the bone. It stank!

Uni daughter’s electricity went off during a power cut and didn’t come back on while the girls were home for the hols for a few weeks. We ‘popped in’ to pick up post etc, my goodness, the smell. Fridge and freezer stuff. As soon as I got the back door open the blue bottles started coming. Daughter had a broken leg in plaster so was unable to help with the clean up.

dead rat in the attic

emptying dogs anal glands

One of my first jobs was working in a small coastal hotel. Most of the rooms were in the main building, but there was a separate annex with two bedrooms and own front door, own kitchen/bathroom etc. like a little holiday home.

It was booked for a weeks stay, 3 adults. I wasn’t there to check them in, but it was in the book it was occupied so I knew it was in use. Anyway we didn’t see head not tail of them the whole time, they insisted they didn’t want any bedding or towels, no tea or coffee topped up etc.

Come check out day I’m stood in reception and the door opened and the smell hit me like a freight train. It was like rotten putrid meat, mixed with faeces and sweat. I can’t really describe it any other way. In walks these three adults from the annex, and there’s this one poor guy… legs totally ulcerated, weeping pus that you could see from a distance, they looked like they were decomposing on him.

Anyway, we couldn’t let out the annex for over a month after. It took two days of leaving the place totally wide open to air before anyone even braved going in. Took almost total renovation in the end, walls painted and new carpets etc. I never found out if they charged the guests or what happened there, but yeah… that smell still makes me honestly gag.

I don't know why but the way you've written this, really made me laugh! You've a real talent at bringing stories to life

Opened the lid of a toilet at work . There was a huge turd lying there that obviously couldn't flush. The smell hit all of a sudden I could even taste it . I vomited over it shut the lid flushed and prayed it had gone away 😂 pity the next unsuspecting user !

A dead bird fallen in between the outer and inner walls of our house. Rotting flesh pervading DCs room. I think I know the stinky paint smell though. Same with ancient masonry paint

Similarly, bloated drowned squirrel. With awful yellow pointy teeth.
It was in a plastic tub up the back of the garden that had filled with rainwater. I thought the smell was stagnant water until I tipped over the tub and this abomination washed up against some trellis.
I had to scoop it up with a kiddy sandpit spade, double-triple bag it, shaking with fear that the nasty swollen little corpse would explode, and gagging at the stink.

OP asks for examples of things that are unexpectedly stinky… thread rapidly fills with stories of death, various rotting things and shit. The most well known causes of stink!! 🤦‍♀️

DS once decided to adopt a hermit crab or possibly some kind of mollusc. Except he forgot to take it out the car. A month later I had to drive everywhere with windows down even after it had been retrieved from between the seats and disposed of.

An sachet of catfood had burst and we had not realised it - that was really grim, the whole house stank

I nearly bought a couple of charity shop Kilner jars this week but someone had been storing bums in them so I left it

At work, it would be the smell of melena. Smells like death.

At home, it's when my IBS kicks in. Smells like death.

A bucket full of orbeez and water I forgot about and left in the garden all summer. When I took the lid off, iIt smelled like burned rubber farts mixed with vinegar. You could smell it a few houses over actually, it was that bad.

Dead animal smell literally has nothing on that stench, honestly. I know because one time I picked up a dead mouse that my cat had left in the garden, tied it in a poo bag and put it down to answer the door. It got left there until the next sunny day, by which time the bag was full of maggots 😝

Orbeez is still worse though. Dead mouse x50.

That liquid at the bottom of the toothbrush holder 🤢

You might have missed a antique roadshow special, Vintage Kerry Katona farts.
I can't wait to see our future treasures.

I'm a medical receptionist. Small waiting room, two toilets, one with baby change. I walked back and forth between the toilets and the waiting room, looking under chairs, in bins, behind doors, for ages, convinced someone had left a dirty nappy lying somewhere and not disposed of it properly, and that it had been there for a number of hours. In summer. (I would not have been surprised, tbh, it was that kind of place.😂) I was mortified to realise a patient was waiting for the nurse to do the dressing for his pilonidal sinus (an abscess where you don't want one to be). 😔Poor guy, I really hope he didn't, but I think he did, realise what I was doing.

Was on a train many years ago heading home for Christmas with my son to other family and train packed all standing and the smell from one old man unwashed was just vile, never forgot it just gross. Must have been weeks of not washing.

The worst thing I ever have smelt was a bag of rotting potatoes it was just terrible

@JustTheOneSwan similar story here.

The previous tenant had died in our house. We just though the marks on the bedroom wall was from him not having a headboard.

Then we steamed the wallpaper off.

It's a smell I will never forgot and wouldn't wish anyone to ever smell

I was travelling and had a boiled egg in a sealed plastic bag in my rucksack to eat later, I forgot it was there and a couple of months later the most awful smell permeated the room - I nearly ripped up the floorboards in case a dead rat was decomposing under them. Amazingly the bag had not leaked at all - the egg was sealed in it, now a green runny mess.

Prawn heads left in the bin for 2 weeks while on holiday in 40 degree heat 🤢

Eggs gone black in the inside 🤮