As I said in this thread, I got a single. The room just opened up, due to the person who was supposed to be living in it never showing up to college.
I called my parents to tell them the good news, and mention that the room “just opened up.” My dad says “You do know how to get the dead body stink out, don’t you?”
Me: “How?”
Dad: “Potatoes, cut in half. And lots of 'em.”
He then goes on to tell me this story about a guy he supposedly knew back in the '60s who bought a Corvette that had had a dead body stashed in it for weeks at a police auction. The guy bought it dirt cheap, and all the officers warned him to just strip the car and sell the parts, because there was no way the smell was ever coming out. The guy bought hundreds of bags of potatoes, cut them all in half, filled up the car with them, and left it in the California sun for a month.
Supposedly the potatoes absorbed the smell, and the car was driveable for many years afterward.
Was there some great acid in The Sixties, or what?
Your dad was talking about this legend which goes back even before 1938.
I’m still checking on the potato thingy. I actually remember my mom from the 1950’s telling me about how to remove the smell from something with a raw potato. I think it was the fridge. Amazing.
I don’t think so. The smelly car urban legend is a little different. The guy doens’t buy the car knowing there had been a dead body in it, and he doesn’t fix it up at the end.
Eh, I’m striking out on Google searches for “raw potato remove room odor”. And in 30+ years of housekeeping, I’ve never personally heard that particular recommendation. I have heard the “rub a raw potato on your hands to remove food stains” thing, but nothing about raw potatoes removing odors in the air.
