The other day I showed a house to my very sweet client Brenna, who is one of my favorite people because she is a stay-at-home mom and can therefore see houses during the day, rather than continually dragging me out during the after-work hours. She usually views property accompanied by her mother and her two-year old son Joseph, who is fascinated by people's vacuum cleaners. We've been looking for four months now and have yet to find the right house, but persistence pays off, so we haven't yet lost hope.
We were quite optimistic about the house we were going to see, because it was advertised as having been remodeled and was owned by a real estate broker; brokers usually do excellent remodels on their own homes, because they know what sells. Upon opening the front door, we were treated to a vista of softly-shimmering pale-gold oak floors, and walls painted in therapeutically-restful soft Southwest colors. Exclamations of approval followed. We were also greeted by a stick of incense that had obviously been left burning by the owner, whom we had seen leaving the house directly before our arrival. It was very lively incense, of the variety useful for covering marijuana and other indiscretions, though I didn't think that was its intended purpose in this case. I don't do very well with strong fragrances, so I decided to wander into the dining room, a little further away from the incense. Every outlet in the dining room was equipped with a Glade Room Plug-In, so that wasn't much better. The kitchen smelled noticeably of Pine-Sol, though it had very attractive slab granite countertops and maple cabinetry. Brenna and her mother were following me, hoping for my usual completely unsalesmanlike running commentary, but I was too distracted by my need for fresh air.
"David, does this house smell a little funny?" Brenna wanted to know.
"Yes -- yes, it does," I agreed, passing into the strangely airplane-aisle-like hall, which couldn't have been more than three feet wide, and had four doors leading off it to Unknown Chambers. Each door we opened provided us with the olfactory equivalent of a hard right to the jaw -- the office was redolent of something resembling lemon-scented furniture polish; the bathroom was a horrible combination of recent bleach and roses; the two bedrooms were, respectively, patchouli and Eau de Wild Forest.
"Do you think they've got bodies buried in the crawl space, or something?" Brenna's mother wondered. I stifled a sneeze and gave it as my eye-watering and sniffling opinion that they were certainly trying to cover something up, though what it was, I couldn't begin to guess.
"I'm kind of hating this place -- it's creepy," Brenna said, "but let's see what's upstairs before we go."
"Of course," I said, surreptitiously stealing a handful of Kleenex from the bleached-rose-garden bathroom.
Our ascent up the staircase gave us the idea that we would soon discover what the owners were trying to cover up; the higher we got, the more the air was filled with a stench that I can only describe as ten years' worth of sweaty, mildewed athletic socks, combined with manure, with an underlying keynote of ammonia. Opening the very tightly-shut door to the master bedroom, we discovered two kennels of a height and breadth so extraordinary that I was sure they must have been custom-built. They were empty, but their former inhabitants had left their unbelievable redolence behind in a pea-soup green fog.
"What kind of pets do you suppose they have?" Brenna wondered. Her son started to cry, and I didn't blame him.
"I can't imagine," I said, "but whatever they are, I don't think they were meant to be domesticated."
We fled the house forthwith, with much relief on all sides. Later that same day, the owner/broker called me to ask what my clients and I had thought of the house.
"Um," I said. "Nice redecorating job."
"So, are they interested?" he asked.
"Ummm. I'm not quite sure how to tell you this, Bob, but the house is rather . . . unusually fragrant."
"Oh?"
"Yes . . . yes, it is. Very, very unusually fragrant. We were somewhat anxious to leave, in fact."
"I guess I got carried away with the incense," he admitted.
"Well, yes -- but it was more particularly the upstairs, I think, that might be the problem."
"Wow, I don't know what was causing that," Bob claimed, ingenuously.
Of course, what I wanted to say was: "Gosh, maybe it's the Giant Stink-Ass Crap-Creatures you apparently keep as pets," but instead, I just shrugged to myself, and hung up the phone.
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Comments: 37
People who live with animals get innured to the odors.. they may genuinely forget that others are not :)
I rented a beach house with friends one summer. It wasn't very old and it was very simple. But the weird thing was that in one bathroom was a very strong B.O. smell. It wasn't from anyone sharing the house. We scrubbed it to death, had someone check the plumbing and sewer, etc. We finally decided it had to be a really stinky ghost.
I like your writing!!!
When we were househunting a few years ago, the market was hot, things would sell within minutes. We were driving with our realtor and I jokingly asked him what's the worst house he'd ever seen. He kind of laughed it off and never really responded to the question. We then pulled up to this house on our list, went in, and immediately he said, "Don't take off your shoes, we're not going to be here long." The house hadn't been cleaned in forever, there was junk piled up all over the place, it smelled of dog urine, the "owners" were sitting in the kitchen having a smoke and a beer, we quickly passed through, did the perfunctory, "thanks" and took off. When we got outside, he turned to us and said, " That's the worst house I've ever seen."
Frick -- You have a wimpy real estate broker. That's nothing . The worst one I've ever seen had hairy green mold growing from the walls, ceiling, and what was left of the carpet; used needles and condoms were everywhere, and several clipped-out advertisements for escort services were scattered around the brown stained pillow and sheet lying on the floor, pieces of which had been chopped apart with an axe to burn in the fireplace for heat. Dog urine and redneck owners are really pretty mild.
OMG I am ROTFLMAO!!!!!
The house my mother and father moved into after getting rid of most of us kids was previously owned by an Indian (as in from India) doctor and his wife. The house smelled very strongly of curry for almost a year and that was hard to bear at times.
That coupled with the lack of American taste in wall coverings made a quick remodel imperative. Wall paper and a little paint and it was ready for main street USA.
Other than the spelling slip, and furthering my suspicious nature of your origin, this was an excellent write up and quite intertaining!
Makes me wonder why my house never sold. My real estate agent didn't seem to indicate a specific problem, so I suspect it has to do with it being a 13-year-old house in a neighborhood that is still building. Never mind, I'm going to move back at the end of the year. Hope I'm not walking back into a booby trap!
We looked at a house over in ID a few months ago and as we made our way down the very steep and tiny steps the essence of incense filled the air in the basement. It was a lovely storage area (and what woman doesn't want more storage?) but the fragrance threw me off right away. Ewww, ick! Artifical fragrance=coverup. So sorry to hear that this house was yet another one to cross off Brenna's list.
Webduck -- You're right about the fragrance thing . . . it's a sure sign of disaster somewhere.
One house we seriously considered and almost bought had a fairly strong cover up scent. I didn't care for the cover up, but Lee was convinced it was there to either cover up smells from the two large dogs or smoker leftovers. The second option would have been very bad as my daughter and I are both allergic. By a happy coincidence, enough little things added up that we passed it by, despite the fact it was lovely and had a pool. However, in hindsight that was a good thing as it was located in an area that was likely under water from this last storm.
Cute story, David.