# Creating the nastiest possible smell. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 6, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316 "2005-01-06T00:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/41 "2013-01-31T13:23:19Z")
Walking past St. James’ Park in London a few years back, they had drained the lake and cleaned out all the bird shit from the lakebed and put it in big piles opposite Horse Guards. It’s the closest I’ve come to vomiting from a smell in my life. Ugh. Makes me retch just thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/42 "2013-01-31T14:09:32Z")
[Melena](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melena), the black tarry stool resulting from an upper GI bleed such as an ulcer, is one of nature’s exquisitely disgusting smells. I lost half my blood volume from a bleeding ulcer and passed out, and when I came to, my shorts were filled with what looked like blackberry jam and smelled like death warmed over. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/43 "2013-01-31T14:28:48Z")
I had a pimple that was capped with a blackhead that wouldn’t budge. I kept putting hot compresses on it to loosen it up, to no avail. AFter about a week of failure, I got fed up and used two bobby pins to force the cap off. When I did that the underlying pimple erupted in what I can only describe as a white froth of pure death stink. It blasted against my bathroom mirror. I gagged and vomited immediately. Even after intense cleaning with lysol disinfectant I could still catch a whiff of that horror for days. I assume from the previous discussions that I had a motherlode of amines in that mess. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/44 "2013-01-31T14:40:59Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Well, I figure zombies’d smell pretty rank. > > The amusing subsection of a chemist’s blog, “Things I Won’t Work With” This guy is great. His description of Dioxygen Diflouride: > [@](#): > > Hydrogen sulfide, for example, reacts with four molecules of FOOF to give sulfur hexafluoride, 2 molecules of HF and four oxygens. . .and 433 kcal, which is the kind of every-man-for-himself exotherm that you want to avoid at all cost. The sulfur chemistry of FOOF remains unexplored, so if you feel like whipping up a batch of Satan’s kimchi, go right ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/45 "2013-01-31T14:52:24Z")
My older brother’s sweatsocks (from football/track and field) were left to soak to remove the dirt. (It had to have been the dirt, because it sure wasn’t the smell.) Gah. That was decades ago, but I still gag to think of them. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/46 "2013-01-31T17:33:04Z")
There’s a large colony of Black Skimmer birds nearby. The waste of thousands of fish-eating birds mellowing in the summer sun gives off an odor not to be forgotten. Also, I worked as sanitation worker one summer. A mixture of all kinds of garbage, often topped with a liberal amount of dog crap (not bagged - just thrown in there), left baking in the August sun for a few days would produce a smell that would, literally, make you gag. When you flipped the lid off of one of those “special” cans you would just hold whatever breath you had in you and dump it before you passed out. Needless to say, those metal cans weren’t treated gently. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316/47 "2013-01-31T18:56:56Z")
I imagine something called “US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor” has to be right up there. From Cracked: > [@](#): > > The US has something called US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor which is apparently so bad, people who have experienced it actually start screaming within seconds. Written accounts describe it as smelling like every bad smell you can think of, put together, times ten. Reports say it actually creates visible cartoon stink lines in the air. The military thinks that’s as hilarious as we do and wants to throw it at people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-the-nastiest-possible-smell/283316.md?page=2)