Tag: odors

Stench in the Shadows.

In the condominium association where I lived once upon a time, there was a strange occurrence that only a brave resident could resolve.  This is the true story.

The overstuffed garbage bags appeared twice weekly in the broom closet on the fifth floor of the condominium building.

What brought this to the attention of the residents was the overpowering stench of rotting foods in the bags.

On a Saturday morning, Miss Wanda, the bravest of the fifth-floor residents, had enough of the reek and marched to the broom closet.  Several residents followed her, for they wanted to be in on the revelation.  Wanda opened the door, and there it was: an overstuffed Hefty® bag emitting a stench that would knock a skunk off his beam.

Wanda took one of the bags and opened it up.  Everyone around her jumped back and held their noses.

“It smells like death,” Old Man Fontane gasped.  “Death on a plate of rotted sardines.”

“At least!” gagged Issac Brenner.  “It smells worse than my ex-wife’s armpits after a sweaty walk in the park.  I’d know that stench anywhere.  Barf!”

“Hoo-eee, Lordy!”  Mrs. Chisa Cooke walked away while holding her nose.  “Y’all enjoy.  I’m headed off to watch Julia reruns on my brand new television.”

Bravely, Miss Wanda dug into the garbage bag.  Slimy beet greens, a moldly banana, empty cartons, and paper brochures from the Poconos greeted her.  She dug around until she saw an envelope.  She reached for it with two fingers.

“Ah!  Well.”  She examined the address.  “Ah ha!  It’s from that brood across the hall from me.  I’ll talk to them.”  The neighbors nodded their heads and a few just whispered, “Ooo!” and “Yeah.”

Miss Wanda knocked on the Stankles’ door.  After talking with the grandmama, neighbors could hear the two women laughing before Miss Wanda returned to her condominium.

“So who did it?” Mrs. Chisa Cooke asked the next day in the laundry room.

“Oh, it was her youngest grandbaby, Tristane.  Do you know that ten-year-old is afraid of the dark, so he just tosses the garbage bags in the broom closet and runs back home!  His parents never check to see if the boy is doin’ his errands right.””

 

 

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Number 7G.

A strange occurrence happened at the Cypress Row Condominiums many years ago.

One early morning, as Varina Pembroke-Sinclair stepped out of her condominium and into the hallway, an odd odor caught her nose.  She couldn’t quite identify it, for it was the most unusual and jarring odor she ever smelled in the hallway, and that was saying something at Cypress Row!  Sure, Miss Varina had a talent that proved she could pinpoint any of her neighbor’s aromas emanated from their condominiums, from the pot of oxtail soup simmering to the sharp tang of a newly opened crock pot filled to the brim with kimchee, and even the West Coast vineyard of a just-uncorked pinot noir.  But yet, this stench in the hallway was something else altogether.

Varina shrugged her shoulders, put the key in her lock, secured it, and headed down the hall to the elevator.

As she approached the elevator, the dank funk became a distinctive fusty skunk-like stench.  She turned her nose up into the air and gave a deep sniff.  It came from Number 7G, the closest condominium around the corner from the elevator.  The pungent odor clung to the air like an unwelcomed visitor.  Varina wrinkled her nose as she pressed the elevator button.  The pungent smell clung to the air like an unwelcome guest.  She again glanced at the door to Number 7G, its chipped paint and crooked lettering giving it an air of neglect.  The family inside had always been a mystery to her; shadowy figures who rarely ventured out, their muffled laughter and occasional arguments seeping through the walls.

The elevator bell chimed twice and the doors slid open.

Varina entered the elevator car.  She thought about 7G.  Not many people really knew the people who lived in 7G, and no one seemed to care enough to try, including Varina.  She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the family than their infamous habits.  Rumors had swirled among the neighbors—whispers of strange visitors at odd hours, packages left at the door that were never retrieved, and the eerie glow of a flickering light that seemed to pulse through the windows late at night.  .  She shrugged her shoulders, took a deep breath, and rode the elevator down in silence.

As she exited the elevator on the ground floor, Varina welcomed the fresh, cool air with no smells, other than the Lysol used by the cleaning lady the evening before.

As Varina walked the five blocks to work, she resolved to uncover the truth.  She wasn’t one for gossip, but something about 7G gnawed at her curiosity.  What secrets were hidden behind that door?  And why did the smell seem to grow stronger over time?

Over the next few weeks, the smell from 7G only grew worse.  It wasn’t just the musty, skunk-like odor anymore.  It now had an acrid edge, as if something was rotting.  Varina couldn’t stand it, yet no one else on the floor seemed to smell it.  Her curiosity turned into unease, then fear, as the stench began to invade her own condominium.

One night, unable to sleep, Varina decided to talk face-to-face with the family in 7G.  She steeled herself, grabbed her keys, and knocked on their door.  The sound echoed through the silent hallway, but there was no answer.  She knocked again, harder this time, the smell making her gag.

The door creaked open.

The apartment was dark.  A dim light bulb on a table flickered in the corner, casting weird shadows on the walls.  Varina stepped inside, calling out tentatively.  The air was oppressive, heavy with the sickly odor, and the silence was deafening.

As she moved further into the apartment, her foot caught on something.  She looked down and gasped.  Strewn across the floor were piles of ashes, remnants of burned paper, clothes, and belongings.  The flickering light came from a makeshift altar, surrounded by melted candles and strange symbols etched into the walls.

And then she saw them.

The family sat on chairs in a circle, motionless.  Their eyes were wide open, staring at nothing, their bodies slumped as if drained of life.  Varina’s scream stuck in her throat as she realized they weren’t breathing.  Whatever had happened in 7G was far beyond anything she could comprehend.

She stumbled backward, fleeing the apartment, and called the police.  When they arrived, the family was gone along with every trace of the altar.  The room was empty, except for a lingering smell and the faint hum of an unseen presence.  Varina thought she lost her mind.  So did the police, and they left, laughing.

For weeks afterward, Varina couldn’t sleep.  The police dismissed her story as nonsense, chalking it up to old-fashioned hysteria.  But she knew better.  Something unnatural had taken root in 7G, and she feared it hadn’t left.

In the months that followed, Varina Pembroke-Sinclair carried the memory of 7G like a stone in her pocket; heavy, cold, impossible to ignore.  In time, the building returned to its routines, and the neighbors forgot the brief commotion around 7G.  Yet Varina knew the quiet was only a disguise.  Some nights, long after midnight, a thin ribbon of that same fetid odor would snake beneath her door, as if reminding her that what she witnessed had not ended; only shifted.  The door to 7G remained shut, its crooked numbers unchanged, yet she sometimes heard a soft rustling inside, like chairs being moved or someone rising slowly from a long, unnatural sleep.  And though she told no one, Varina felt certain the family had never truly left.  Something had been awakened in that condominium, something patient, something watchful, and it was only a matter of time before it sought her out and her sanity again at Cypress Row Condominiums.

The conclusion to this story is published on June 13, 2026.

 

 

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A Ministry of Mayhem.

Parents who do not teach their children to respect and obey actually prepare them for a life out of step with God’s Word and in step with the devils.

You might assume that a man styling himself a pastor would have a household that at least vaguely exhibits the teachings of Jesus.  You know, the kind of pastor who should be an example to society, a spiritual guide, a moral compass, and a weekly dispenser of authentic wisdom on the stage of his Fellowship Congregation.  You might even imagine that he’d model basic manners and modesty.

A long time ago, when I lived in a certain condominium, one such person paraded bare-chested in the condominium hallways and public sidewalks.  You’d probably would think that this “pastor” would’ve covered himself up and not parade around in public bare-chested.  By doing that, he was teaching his son well to do the same, which eventually happened, too.  As time when on, his pre-teen daughter was wearing low cut tops and belly-button-showing jeans and beachwear.

This particular family let their children throw out the family garbage, not through the garbage chute, but leave it hidden in the janitor’s closet until the odors compelled other residents to investigate.  The kids squirted soda or some sort of drink on the carpet in the elevator (I saw them do that just as the elevator door opened.)  If the parents double-checked their kids’ chores and where they were, they could’ve corrected them and set them on the right path.  Maybe.

Their children, old enough to know better, ran through the halls at all hours: dawn, mid‑afternoon, nearly midnight.  The thundering footsteps were so intense I occasionally wondered if the building had been repurposed as a training facility for buffalo stampedes.

And again, these were not toddlers.  These were pre‑teens, fully capable of understanding rules, boundaries, and the concept of “other people exist,” so be thoughtful!

The “pastor’s” wife, too, contributed to her own public ministry: it was an evangelization of scent so potent it could’ve knocked a person out.  It was so strong and long-lasting, it made the neighbors think she most likely applied the body lotions and colognes uncontrollably from head to toe.  Her cologne didn’t merely enter the hallways or elevator; it conquered, planted a flag, and dared anyone to challenge its sovereignty.  Her neighborliness went as far as waving at you with her arm behind her head, but never turning to face you and say, “hello.”

Maybe I’m all wet here; however, my thoughts always were that when a husband/father is a pastor of some wort, he guides his family on the path of holiness according to Jesus’ teachings and they all become a positive example to the neighborhood and to the world.  Yet, in that case I wrote about, they weren’t all that friendly, the kids were wild, and they sure solidified the neighbors’ opinions that a “pastor’s” family can be a shining example of what not to do.

In the end, it’s sad: a “pastor” who cannot shepherd his own household, a family whose public displays consists of hallway chaos, elevator dirtying, public undress, and overall disrespect towards neighbors.

But beneath all that sits a quieter truth.  When parents refuse to teach respect, discipline, and consideration, the world instead becomes their children’s classroom, and the lessons are rarely kind.  A household without order doesn’t just scandalize and inconvenience its neighbors; it forms a generation unprepared for the responsibilities, reverence, and self‑control that a faithful and respectable life requires.

 

 

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Fusty Skunk, Rotting Fish.

When I lived at the Sage Pointe Condominiums, I never knew which putrid odor would ambush my unsuspecting nose when I opened my door to the hallway or when I stepped on or off the elevator.

The hallway had its own olfactory roulette wheel.  Some days the marijuana smelled like musky, gassy skunk.  Other days it hit like rotting fish drenched in pungent patchouli.  Sometimes it was a perfect blend of old, fusty socks and rank elephant.  Sometimes it smelled of eucalyptus.  Add to that the lingering smell of cheap cologne and cigarettes, greasy sausage, and those scents stayed for hours, only to fade and make room for the next dreadful strain of stench.

One of the building’s finest “amenities” was the elevator, which faithfully preserved the perfume of whoever rode it last.  I have taken rides perfumed by Grandma Weede’s lingering skunky marijuana haze from an hour earlier.  On other days, the odor du jour was a baffling mix of candy‑sweet pre‑teen bath and body sprays and lotions from the Stankle girls.  It was a combination that somehow managed to get stronger the farther down you travelled on the elevator car.

Mrs. Stankle, on her own, specialized in mysterious stenches that defied classification.  Some days it was sugary carrots, and other days it was akin to coconut-musk that went terribly wrong.  And sometimes it was something so indescribable that the only reasonable response was to pray for deliverance.

Adonis was no different.  If he didn’t just return from the gym dripping with smelly sweat, he reeked of a potent blend of sweat and Drakkar Noir, a combination that could have knocked a grown adult back a full step or two.  His life is lived in bold, glossy strokes of sweat, swagger, and spectacle.

Then there’s the Weede Family, whose contributions varied by the hour.  Their hallway offerings ranged from “forest‑floor funk” to “burnt tire with herbal aspirations.”  Or they left the elevator lingering with the aroma of greasy chicken or the tang of old tacos.  Their door was like a portal to a different dimension, one where ventilation systems and their filters went to die.

One entire floor in one of the complex’s buildings reeked of cheap cigarette tobacco that emanated from just one condo unit.

Then there was the smell of wet dog, musty dog, stale dog.  It emerged unpredictably, but usually in the late afternoons, and clung to the elevator walls until it was finally overpowered by some other mysterious stench.

The elevator contributed its own disturbing whiffs of diesel fuel, and that’s a story for another day.

Rarely did the hallways offer the uplifting aromas of barbecue or simmering spaghetti sauce.  When I brought my dog home from his Spa Day appointment, he became a walking air freshener— sort of a jasmine-lavender-powdery scent that lasts until his next appointment.  Since my condo retains this scent, I imagine he also left his trail through the hallways and elevator, just like everyone else, so maybe it was disturbing to others.

At Sage Pointe, the smells changed by the hour because there was always someone contributing to the fragrant or stinky bouquet.  Rarely—oh so rarely—did the hallways offer the comforting aromas of barbecue or sweet baked cakes.  Those scents were the rarities of Sage Pointe: imagined, longed for, and almost certainly elusive.

 

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The Stankles.

I lived in a large mid‑rise building, the kind with long hallways, welcoming vestibules, perpetually humming vents, and a cast of neighbors who could each anchor their own documentary.  Life at the Sage Pointe Condominiums was never dull, especially if you had a sensitive nose.  In today’s essay, I’d like to introduce you to one of our more… aromatic residents.  I have lived in buildings that have friendly doormen or fresh flowers in the lobby, and a dedicated cleaning crew that cleaned and deodorized a couple times a week.  However, at Sage Pointe Condominiums we had odors—layered and evolving.

Whenever I opened my front door or step off the elevator, I braced myself.  I never knew what invisible cloud would greet me, or what new olfactory assault would come barreling toward my unsuspecting nose.

The most infamous contributors were Adonis and his family, whom I privately referred to as The Stankles.  If it were scientifically possible for a scent to take physical form, they would have travelled through life surrounded by a perpetual soft green fog—something between a cartoonish stink cloud and a government chemical weapons test.  Each member of the family seemed to believe that the only way to apply cologne was to marinate in it.  Not spritz.  Not dab.  Marinate.

When that throat‑tightening, eye‑watering haze slapped me across the face, I know exactly what it means: The Stankles had either left for work and school or had triumphantly returned.  They lived on the opposite end of the hallway from me, which maked the reach of their fumes all the more impressive.  For the stench to drift all the way to my wing, it must have been clinging to them like a second skin, and through all seven layers, too.

I imagined inside their condominium.  In my mind, a greenish mist hung in the air like a permanently stagnant weather system.  The scent must have ripened throughout the week, as it settled into the carpet, the curtains, the couch cushions, the walls; every surface absorbing a different note from each family member’s chosen fragrance.  One of them preferred something sharp and citrusy, another something musky and sweet, another something like patchouli mixed with body odor, and yet another something that smelled like a gas station bathroom trying its best.  The combination was… unique.

The elevator, of course, had its own adventure.  It faithfully recorded the comings and goings of the building’s most pungent citizens.  Step inside, and you could tell instantly whether The Stankles had recently passed through.  But they weren’t the only ones who left their mark.

There’s The Princess, whose perfume was so distinctive it might as well be trademarked.  She rocked through the building with her dogs like a scented comet, leaving behind a shimmering trail of powdery, floral, dirt, and a slightly sweaty body odor insistence.  And then there was the unmistakable contribution of The Weede Family, whose fusty skunk aroma drifted through the vents with the determination of a creature lazily seeking freedom.

Their stories and their scents deserved essays of their own.  And believe me, I’ll get to them in future essays.  Life at the Sage Pointe Condominiums provides no shortage of material.  For now, consider this your first whiff of the cast of characters who made my building unforgettable in ways I never asked for.

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