The Great Stink Hunt: A Familiar Tale of Domestic Detection
Been scrolling through Reddit again during my lunch break, and stumbled across one of those posts that hits way too close to home. Someone desperately trying to track down a mysterious stench in their kitchen - that awful combination of death, rotting food, and something that might charitably be described as digestive distress. The poor soul had already done the full forensic investigation routine: removed everything, wiped down every surface, sniffed every container. Still nothing.
The responses were brilliant. Within minutes, the internet’s collective wisdom had narrowed it down to two prime suspects: rotten potatoes or a deceased rodent. The potato crowd came out in force with horror stories that would make a crime scene investigator queasy. Apparently, when spuds go bad, they don’t just sprout - they liquify into something that smells worse than a morgue on a hot day. One commenter mentioned they had to count their cats because they were convinced something had died in the walls.
The mouse faction was equally vocal, sharing tales of mysterious odours that appeared and disappeared, only to discover weeks later that Mortimer had met his maker somewhere between the kitchen cabinets and the skirting boards.
Reading through these domestic detective stories reminded me of our own Great Stink Mystery from a few years back. Our teenage daughter had developed what can only be described as selective nose blindness - she genuinely couldn’t smell the growing funk emanating from her room. My wife and I were going mental trying to locate the source. We’d done the full parent inspection: under the bed, behind the desk, checked for forgotten food containers. The smell was definitely biological, definitely concerning, and definitely getting worse.
Turns out it was a sports bag that had been shoved under her wardrobe after a particularly muddy hockey session. Wet gear, forgotten for weeks, had created its own ecosystem. The bag was beyond salvation - we had to bin the whole thing and air out the room for days. The experience taught us that teenagers operate on an entirely different olfactory plane than the rest of us.
What struck me about that Reddit thread wasn’t just the shared trauma of mysterious household odours, but how quickly people jumped in to help. Within hours, there were dozens of responses offering practical advice, sharing similar experiences, and providing that crucial moral support that comes with knowing you’re not losing your mind - everyone goes through this stuff.
The internet gets a lot of stick these days, and fair dinkum, some of it’s deserved. But there’s something beautifully human about a bunch of strangers rallying around someone’s domestic crisis. Whether it’s tracking down phantom smells or dealing with liquified vegetables, we’re all just trying to keep our little corners of the world from falling apart.
The consensus seemed to be that forgotten potatoes are the worst culprits - several people mentioned they smell worse than actual decomposition, which is saying something. Note to self: check the vegetable drawer more regularly. The last thing I need is my neighbours thinking we’re running some sort of underground forensics lab.
These days, I’ve become a bit paranoid about buying too many spuds at once. There’s nothing quite like the fear that somewhere in your kitchen, a potato is slowly transforming into a biological weapon. It’s the kind of anxiety that makes you do midnight kitchen inspections, just to make sure everything’s still solid and non-threatening.
The whole thing made me appreciate how much we rely on our sense of smell for basic safety and hygiene. When something’s off, that’s often the first warning we get. It’s also a reminder that most household mysteries have mundane explanations - though that doesn’t make them any less traumatic when you’re living through them.
Next time I’m tempted to buy that bulk bag of potatoes at the supermarket, I’ll remember the Reddit horror stories and stick to what we’ll actually use in a week. Some bargains just aren’t worth the risk.