# meth lab odor **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2000, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977 "2000-03-18T19:42:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/1 "2000-03-18T19:42:00Z")
The search function is really entertaing. When I tried it I got linked to comments about the Holdout Japanese soldiers. Ah ha! I thot, so that’s what those guys were doing in the jungle. Then it linked me to “largest comercial Bra size” I didn’t even wanta know what the connection there was. ( Tho I do wonder if there is a not for profit bra size) So ennyway a friend asked, why he asked me I don’t know,what is the distinctive or unique odor of a meth lab that we read about in reports of lab busts?? I know they use ether and acetone and all sorts of other -enes and -tones, but I use some of those in my work, What is the " distinctive, unique" odor? * * * “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/2 "2000-03-18T20:36:00Z")
From [http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/990901e.html](http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/990901e.html) > [@](#): > > The fumes from a meth lab are distinctive, smelling like rotten eggs. ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/3 "2000-03-18T22:11:00Z")
thanks beatle. That’s just great. I also use sulfuric acid in cleaning and treating some castings, I gonna get busted. * * * “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx ---
**Author:** ![BugZap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@BugZap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BugZap)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2000, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/4 "2000-03-19T08:20:00Z")
## What is the " distinctive, unique" odor? Of a meth lab? they smell slightly sweet, like death. a little bit ether, a little bit acetone, and a whole lot of acetic acid. smells like bohpal india, rotting flesh thats the distinctive odor, and if you smell it, you die, or are already greatly injured, Slightly sweet, like death, that’s what it smells like. ---
**Author:** ![pmh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@pmh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmh)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2000, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/5 "2000-03-19T08:31:00Z")
The cops busted a lab in my neighborhood some time back. The whole neighborhood smelled (to me anyway) like methanol race fuel. I need to move. ---
**Author:** ![dragonfly98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7bcc69/32.png) [@dragonfly98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dragonfly98)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2000, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/6 "2000-03-22T03:47:00Z")
What’s a meth lab anyway? If you mean methamphetamine laboratory I do know what that is, but only from textbook type descriptions. If they emit an odor that would make them that much easier to detect of course. Of course I know little about all the dangerous chemicals that must be necessary at one point or another. * * * “What’s right is only half of what’s wrong and I want a short-haired girl who sometimes wears it twice as long.” George Harrison - _Old Brown Shoe_ ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2000, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-lab-odor/8977/7 "2000-03-22T05:16:00Z")
So we got ethery,ketoney,rotten eggy, rotting flesh smells. Oh yeh, and paranoid dragonflies. All the typical signs of a meth lab. I wonder what I been up to around here while I was gone. * * * “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx