# Why would a house suddenly smell like pepper spray? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 15, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879 "2020-04-15T21:38:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/1 "2020-04-15T21:38:55Z")
I’m trying to see if there could be a logical explanation for this. A week ago I get home and at the front door there is smell that I can only describe as peppery. The only thing that smells similar to it is my bear mace pepper spray, which was still in it’s container in my kitchen. I left the door open and the smell went away. But I’m still trying to figure out where it came from. Is there anything in my house that could have caused the smell by accident? ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/2 "2020-04-15T22:28:09Z")
A gas leak? Do you have basement floor drains? Try pouring some water down them. But this won’t fix it if it’s a gas leak. Call your gas company and they will send someone over with a detector. Different people describe the natural gas smell as different things, no two are alike. And after a few minutes you get used to it and don’t notice it any more until after you’ve been out of the house for a while and come back. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/3 "2020-04-15T22:31:47Z")
A bear rang the doorbell and somebody sprayed it? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/4 "2020-04-16T01:57:10Z")
[Moderating] **silenus** , let’s please save the joke answers for after folks have had a chance to make good-faith answers to the question, shall we? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/5 "2020-04-16T01:57:11Z")
[Moderating] **silenus** , let’s please save the joke answers for after folks have had a chance to make good-faith answers to the question, shall we? ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/6 "2020-04-16T02:06:15Z")
Aside from the OP being in Brooklyn, the idea of it being wild life is not too absurd. Cite - [As humans stay indoors, wild animals take back what was once theirs](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-wild-animals-wales-goats-barcelona-boars-brazil-turtles/2020/04/14/30057b2c-7a71-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/7 "2020-04-16T02:37:52Z")
Could it be stink bugs? I’ve never smooshed a stink bug but one time I did smell one and I remember thinking it smelled peppery. Skunk spray is very peppery, and it carries. Could it have been a skunking nearby? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/8 "2020-04-16T17:11:18Z")
Neighbors may have overheated some hot pepperpeppers? If you fry Habaneros too hot, the capsaicins will come off and render your kitchen uninhabitable. Maybe you caught the tail end of a cooking error by your next door neighbor. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/9 "2020-04-16T17:13:32Z")
Server glitch. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/10 "2020-04-16T17:23:19Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Server glitch. Yeah, server glitches smell pretty awful. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/11 "2020-04-16T18:04:04Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Server glitch. I was once sitting in my apartment and started to smell baked beans. I was hoping the neighbor upstairs made them and I didn’t have a stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/12 "2020-04-16T18:43:18Z")
To be clear, does it just _smell_ like peppers, or does it also produce a burning sensation in the eyes and other mucus membranes? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/13 "2020-04-16T18:51:55Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > Is there anything in my house that could have caused the smell by accident? I think you are better prepared to answer that than we are. For additional clarification, did you smell this in the house, outside, or both? Certainly something in the environment around your house could do this, and if you smelled it outside then opening the door could allow it into the house as well, Since leaving the door open made it go away it’s clearly not an ongoing process in your house that did it. And if was something inside the house the odor would probably linger near the point of origin. I don’t think it was a bear as suggested above, but maybe it was just some mace or other noxious substance recently sprayed in the vicinity. And just curious, do you need a lot of bear repellent in Brooklyn? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/14 "2020-04-16T19:13:27Z")
Overheated Hot peppers _will_ burn your eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/15 "2020-04-16T20:49:42Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Could it be stink bugs? I’ve never smooshed a stink bug but one time I did smell one and I remember thinking it smelled peppery. > > Skunk spray is very peppery, and it carries. Could it have been a skunking nearby? I also vote for skunk. The smell can be very different than the burnt rubber scent you get from road kill. ---
**Author:** ![icbm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@icbm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icbm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/16 "2020-04-16T21:10:07Z")
Maybe someone nearby was cooking with very spicy peppers. When I do that at home it can linger indoors for a lot longer than you’d like. Not sure how far away it can carry on the wind. Could also be the mace can got too hot and seeped a bit? Was it in strong sunlight or on some other heat source? I would consider that to be a super bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/17 "2020-04-16T21:21:51Z")
I’m going to go with someone else that lives in your house sprayed a potential intruder on the front porch with your bear mace spray and then returned it to the kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/18 "2020-04-16T21:41:46Z")
Now I’m confused, because skunk doesn’t smell at all like either hot peppers or burnt rubber. ---
**Author:** ![Crossbreed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@Crossbreed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crossbreed)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2020, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/19 "2020-04-17T09:13:28Z")
Perhaps, your mail carrier used pepper spray on a stray dog. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2020, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879/20 "2020-04-17T16:24:44Z")
> [@icbm](#): > > Maybe someone nearby was cooking with very spicy peppers. When I do that at home it can linger indoors for a lot longer than you’d like. Not sure how far away it can carry on the wind. One time I decided to make up a batch of homemade insecticide using hot peppers in a blender.\* The result was acrid enough to drive Mrs. J. and I out of the kitchen and we had to open windows to air the place out before we could return. Possibly a neighbor made the same mistake. The mailman theory isn’t bad either. \*[not as loony as it sounds](https://www.gardenguides.com/119834-capsaicin-insecticide.html). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-house-suddenly-smell-like-pepper-spray/851879.md?page=2)