# Pantry Horror Story



## ovsfarm (Jan 14, 2003)

Recently I went to help a dear friend of mine clean her great aunt's house that she and her husband bought about 6 months after the aunt's recent death. 

Of course, all of the food items were removed from the kitchen when the elderly woman went into the hospital shortly before her death. However, there was a funky smell that lingered. We recleaned all the kitchen shelves but the odor lingered. Eventually my friend remembered that her aunt had a pantry closet off an alcove near the kitchen. 

When we opened the pantry door, the odor nearly knocked us down. Apparently in all the rush when the lady became ill and had to be taken to the ER, someone had shoved a sack of potatoes into the pantry. Of course they rotted. And in the ensuing several months, the potato "liquid" rusted about 3 dozen cans of evaporated milk, which began to leak. And somewhere in the process, the silverfish, gnats, and their assorted friends moved in. YUCK!!!

To top it all off, below that shelf were boxes of canning supplies. Thousands of brand new, unopened flats and rings. They were not rusted or damaged, but we took them all out, threw away all the boxes, and washed everything in hot, soapy water and then a scalding water rinse. My friend said she always scalds her flats and rings right before using them, so I'm sure any bacteria left will be taken care of.

As I write this, we have scrubbed the area down with detergent and bleach and have a fan drying it.

The moral of this story? If anyone offers to give you unused canning supplies, be sure to discard all packaging prior to introducing the items into your pantry and also consider giving them a quick wash. (My 12yo offered to do all the washing of the thousands of items here as a house warming gift to our friend.) You definitely don't want to introduce any bugs or germs into your good, clean pantry by accident.

Hope this helps someone here. It will be a while before I get the smell of rotten potato and sour milk out of my nose, and I was wearing a mask!


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

yeah rotten potatoes and milk would be gross....

When my sister bought her old farmhouse the people had cats that bred and bred whilst the house was vacant...the house was nasty with cat poo and urine...it was disgusting...all the heat vents and everything had to be cleaned and carpets ripped up..floors sanded even to get the stink out....


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

When I moved into my little house it had been abandoned , with open windows. Pipes burst and cats and racoons lived there . Had to remove carpet ( was trashed by previous human tenants with lack of cleaning skills anyway ) and sand down floors and remove some walls to get rid of smells and water damage. lucky for me I had some beautiful wood floors under the mess and some nice wood paneling under the fake wood paneling. I put screens over the windows so they could remain open, took six weeks til I could move in. It was a very satisfying project. Rotten potato and milk sounds worse!


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## Catshooter (May 11, 2009)

Good advice.

Your twelve year old volenteered to do all that washing? Twelve? Wow. I'm impressed. She must be quite the girl, good for you and her!


Cat


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## secretcreek (Jan 24, 2010)

Rotten potato is indeed horrible. I have an air purifier and boy does it do a good job cleaning the air and killing odors from stinky stuff ( ex:guys stinky shoes and clothes!). It runs the air across an ultraviolet light bulb. It makes the air smell so fresh - like clean laundry or sometimes like chlorinated water/pool room. If you could get ahold of one of these things that would speed the process up. 

Nice of you to help in such a nasty job.

-scrt crk


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## watcher (Sep 4, 2006)

Could ya'll PLEASE use the term "food storage area" instead of "pantry"? 9 times out of 10 my eyes and/or brain misses the "r" in pant*r*y and I'm confused, and some times disappointed, when I read the post.


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

watcher said:


> Could ya'll PLEASE use the term "food storage area" instead of "pantry"? 9 times out of 10 my eyes and/or brain misses the "r" in pant*r*y and I'm confused, and some times disappointed, when I read the post.


:flameproofundies::tmi::hrm:


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Ya, I store potatoes in my pantry, what an awful smell if one goes bad. The nose is trained to sniff each time the door opens when I go in to get some canned goods. Time to husk the hazelnuts, couple were on the floor-which tells me there is a mouse comeing in,not to mention the little bites in some ripening tomatoes.Gosh,I can just imagine the mess if I had an extended stay away from home.


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## Wags (Jun 2, 2002)

watcher said:


> Could ya'll PLEASE use the term "food storage area" instead of "pantry"? 9 times out of 10 my eyes and/or brain misses the "r" in pant*r*y and I'm confused, and some times disappointed, when I read the post.


Well I'm not disappointed - but I have the same problem. I was thinking this was going to be about some one line drying clothes or something. :happy2:


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## MountainCat (Aug 15, 2011)

oh my goodness, that smell would be awful. I'm glad you guys were able to save the canning supplies! My ex-husband was bad about putting new potatoes on top of older ones in my taters and onions bin. So just glancing in there when you smelled it didn't turn anything up. then eventually it started turning the newer potatoes rotten.... oh it was a vicious cycle lol.


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## secretcreek (Jan 24, 2010)

7thswan said:


> Ya, I store potatoes in my pantry, what an awful smell if one goes bad. The nose is trained to sniff each time the door opens when I go in to get some canned goods. Time to husk the hazelnuts, couple were on the floor-which tells me there is a mouse comeing in,not to mention the little bites in some ripening tomatoes.Gosh,I can just imagine the mess if I had an extended stay away from home.


I think it's funny to see how country folk and preppers take reality truths like if you store food- you will likely draw mice at somepoint..and not freak out about it. Deal with it and keep moving forward.
-scrt crk


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

Yeah and expiration dates. My grandson throws away anything that has passed expiration date without checking if its still okay. My dd has been heartbroken over things he's tossed. She's a single mom without any support from deadbeat dad so her son's throwing good food away due to an arbitrary date is a disaster. My take is check the date and then see if its still okay. Nine times out of ten it is fine.

How many keep mouse traps, rat traps, and/or rodent poison as part of your preps?


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## beaglebiz (Aug 5, 2008)

Wags said:


> Well I'm not disappointed - but I have the same problem. I was thinking this was going to be about some one line drying clothes or something. :happy2:


 here is a scary panty for you









edited to add...I dont know who that is...its just an image I found


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## watcher (Sep 4, 2006)

Wags said:


> Well I'm not disappointed - but I have the same problem. I was thinking this was going to be about some one line drying clothes or something. :happy2:


Not to hijack the thread but I had all kinds of thoughts. Maybe a pair got caught around the agitator of the washer and won't come loose; the poster was going to hang a load of unmentionables on the line, got distracted, put the basket on the car and drove down the road leaving a trail; they were feeding the critters and one got a horn or hoof stuck, panicked and drug the wearing around the field. But NOOOOO it was about sticky taters in the food storage area.


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## Zipporah (Jul 30, 2006)

I'm not there and my nose snuffed up at the thought of the smell.:hand::yuck:Yuck. Good advice though,thanks.You never know where things have been.


beaglebiz those aren't panties,that a slungshot. :viking::tmi:


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

My parents bought a house from an estate. The owner had been moved to a nursing home and the house left just as she left it. Eventually the electricity was turned off. When they went in they found a freezer full of rotted food and maggots. Ditto the fridge. And the mouse smell ... I swear I still smell mouse in the guest bedroom.

I know a lot of people who would just walk away but we know things can be cleaned up and made usable again. Problems are made to be solved not walked away from... although sometimes walking is the right thing to do!!


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## beaglebiz (Aug 5, 2008)

folks look at me funny if I sniff a bag of anything fresh (potatoes, clams etc) when I want to buy some. I think its smart.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

I forgot 2 milk crates of onions in our spare room last winter. It looked lik some one had bled out under them on the floor when I found them this spring.


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

I've always been one of those people that upchucks if I smell upchuck somewhere. As a classroom teacher it wasn't fun nor helpful for me to do that, especially in the presence of the sick student. I finally discovered that I could put on a medical mask and chew on a breath mint to stop me from making more of a mess. I still use this method to live through bad smells. I actually wear a blouse with a pocket to carry my nitro and a roll of breath mints. :ashamed:


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

WORST SMELL TO DATE 

FEBRUARY 1999

now keep in mind i used to clean pools before college , we found some mighty nasty things floating in the bottom of a pool after is sat for a winter dead possum , ***** , cats, squirrel , but we had the benefit of it usually was still early spring and things hadn't had a lot of time to ferment 

cleaning fish ,gutting gut shot deer , cleaning the barn all no problem 

the story of the worst smell dw and i started dating in oct 98 i made dinner for her one night say mid oct, turkey loaf ,we had left overs , placed in Tupperware , busy college students the left overs found their way to the back of the fridge.
as i am leaving for work one day in late January i comment to my room mate that the fridge is starting to smell a bit if he hot a chance could he try and figure it out , he said later he found it , cool , so the fridge smelled better , when he said he found it i thought he had dealt with it. no he had set it on the counter and it had gotten covered up , you should understand how little i was in my apartment , i woke at 5 was at work at 7 worked full time and then some then took night classes that finished at 10 i would get to bed around mid night so i could get up and do it all again the next day.

so when the kitchen started to smell and taking out the garbage didn't fix it we started looking all over the place , we found ----- the turkey loaf left overs----
that were now 4 and a half months old the last 10-15 days without refrigeration 

well me being the good son , and the tupperware having been given to me by my mother , and she had raised us to understand how tupperware wasn't cheap (oath that i will return the tupperware i took my lunch in was taken as a child)
i tried to save the container 
i ran the garbage disposal and hot water and started flushing it down the drain and ----- started tossing my cookies , couldn't stop ran for the door finally getting some fresh air i could stop heaving , it was febuary , snow on the ground we open the windows and doors , and even living in a so so neighborhood left the door open screen shut with windows open and fans running to clear the stink 

don't think we have had turkey loaf since, but she married me any way a year later 

diapers , even the stinkiest ones , are no comparison 


so not exactly a pantry story but 


i have thought that washable stack-able crates that held 12 canning jars would be a great thing to have


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

watcher said:


> Could ya'll PLEASE use the term "food storage area" instead of "pantry"? 9 times out of 10 my eyes and/or brain misses the "r" in pant*r*y and I'm confused, and some times disappointed, when I read the post.


 Although it'd be interesting, I can't figure out how to get all my prep food storage to fit down in my undergarments....

Learned a long time ago, don't store live food in the panties, er pantry, er food storage area. If it gets out of sight, it will go rotten, and be a bug party site for months... had a bag of taters that got behind some buckets, here in the kitchen, recently, and 'found them' by smell!


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## MOgal (Jul 27, 2002)

When we bought this place, the owner left rotting food in the refrigerator--meats, open cans of veggies, you name it. What a mess to clean up but at least most things were in good containers or the drawers so didn't have blood seeping from packages of meat. Nasty. To this day, I won't store fresh unpackaged food in that refrigerator even though I cleaned it twice and frequently even now.

Next worst smell--Neighbors gave me a deer that had been shot on an 80o day and they didn't find it until the next morning after a night that didn't get much below 60o. They eviscerated him and put him into a walk-in cooler. DH was away so I had the delightful chore of hanging, skinning and disjointing him. I noticed a tiny bit of odor but put him into large containers with lids in the refrigerator. The next morning when I entered the room where the refrigerator was, I could smell him. When I opened the door, the smell was overpowering and I could see that the flesh was actually green. Didn't waste any time getting those containers out the door and I considered throwing them away. The smell went away after a cycle in the dishwasher. Only later did they mention he'd been gut shot. So gross.


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## Bat Farm (Apr 21, 2010)

Ugh rotten potatoes, gag. Sticking your thumb into on that you didn't see...shudder. 

A nice smear of vicks vapor rub under the nose is handy for smelly tasks (learned that doing necropsies on sharks). A friend who cleans crime scene houses puts coffee in a frying pan to roast while she works.


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## julieq (Oct 12, 2008)

I've totally given up storing potatoes anywhere in the house. Long term potato storage here is in canning jars.


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## Sweetsong (Dec 4, 2010)

julieq said:


> I've totally given up storing potatoes anywhere in the house. Long term potato storage here is in canning jars.


Me, too. Don't have a pressure canner, so get them from Aldis. I've tried everything. The 'fridge isn't bad, but once apple season starts, the potatoes come out. Wonder if drying would work.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

MOgal said:


> When we bought this place, the owner left rotting food in the refrigerator--meats, open cans of veggies, you name it. What a mess to clean up but at least most things were in good containers or the drawers so didn't have blood seeping from packages of meat. Nasty. To this day, I won't store fresh unpackaged food in that refrigerator even though I cleaned it twice and frequently even now.
> 
> Next worst smell--Neighbors gave me a deer that had been shot on an 80o day and they didn't find it until the next morning after a night that didn't get much below 60o. They eviscerated him and put him into a walk-in cooler. DH was away so I had the delightful chore of hanging, skinning and disjointing him. I noticed a tiny bit of odor but put him into large containers with lids in the refrigerator. The next morning when I entered the room where the refrigerator was, I could smell him. When I opened the door, the smell was overpowering and I could see that the flesh was actually green. Didn't waste any time getting those containers out the door and I considered throwing them away. The smell went away after a cycle in the dishwasher. Only later did they mention he'd been gut shot. So gross.



we found a nice buck Sunday morning of opener , clearly had been gut shot the day before and had died , temps was in the 40's , eviscerated it in the woods , it stunk from the get go , we brought it back to camp cleaned it very well lots of cold water from the hose , but it still had a smell to it when we skinned it , we let it go as not worth getting sick over , hearing your story i am sure gad we cut our losses then

part of what made the decision easier was i had just shot a nice 8 point buck but mine fell where i shot it and wasn't dead 10 minutes before i had it gutted , i had also taken a large bodied 4 point on opening day so we were good for meat , letting the found deer go wasn't so hard when i already had a good amount.


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## wagvan (Jan 29, 2011)

*shudder*


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

Worst smell EVER, EVER, EVER!
Around 1993 or so...
Moved into a beautiful apartment in an historic house.
Strange little 'courtyard' about 8 feet or so below window level.
It had some trash and stuff in it, so we climbed down to clean up.
It was construction trash from a remodel several years before.
There was a 5 gallon bucket down there... with a lid.

So.. we knocked over the bucket. Oh..there are no words.

It was the potty bucket... from years before.

The smell permeated everything. We taped the windows shut, but the smell rose up and over the 3 story house and flooded the street out front. People stopped at the stop sign 2 doors down were gagging and wretching.

Don't ever open a closed 5 gallon bucket.


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

chickenista said:


> Worst smell EVER, EVER, EVER!
> Around 1993 or so...
> Moved into a beautiful apartment in an historic house.
> Strange little 'courtyard' about 8 feet or so below window level.
> ...



Oh my goodness, that has the makings of a very scarey horror story all its own. I really do think bad smells originate in hell.


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## Cygnet (Sep 13, 2004)

When I was a kid, we had a NASTY smell in the kitchen we couldn't track down. It smelled like something had died -- it was nauseatingly bad. Turned out to be a single rotten potato at the back of a cabinet. 

I once had a VERY dead forty pound turkey in a couple layers of trash bag, my trash, waiting for trash pickup. It was summer, with 100+ degree weather, and the turkey had been in there about four or five days. He was thoroughly bagged up to keep the odor down. 

The neighbors let their pit bull run loose. He had a doggy door and could go in and out as he pleased when they weren't there. Yes, this was an issue -- he was a friendly dog, but he peed on my hay every time he came trotting by! And he'd dumped my trash before. I had complained at his owner about this before with no response.

Well, he smelled the Dead Turkey of Doom, which, by now, I'm sure was starting to liquify. He dumped the trash can, pulled out the Turkey of Doom, and ripped the bag open -- which was when I realized what he was up to, as suddenly I smelled Turkey of Doom a good 300 feet away, downwind. Let's just say it was memorable even at that distance.

The dog rolled in it, then decided to take his prize home. (Who was I to stop him? I'm not getting in a dispute with a pit bull over a Turkey of Doom. I didn't want it back anyway!) 

His owners weren't home, and remember, he's got a doggy door. ound: I found out later he left the Turkey of Doom, partially consumed, in the middle of the owner's bed. I told the owner, "Well, that's just proof he's been getting in the trash!"

The owner fixed their fence and kept their dog home after that.:hysterical:


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

Cygnet said:


> When I was a kid, we had a NASTY smell in the kitchen we couldn't track down. It smelled like something had died -- it was nauseatingly bad. Turned out to be a single rotten potato at the back of a cabinet.
> 
> I once had a VERY dead forty pound turkey in a couple layers of trash bag, my trash, waiting for trash pickup. It was summer, with 100+ degree weather, and the turkey had been in there about four or five days. He was thoroughly bagged up to keep the odor down.
> 
> ...


I'm surprised there was a dog after that. That had to have been the worst smell ever. Reminds of this dog:

[YOUTUBE]PuA6ZjpEJys[/YOUTUBE]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuA6ZjpEJys[/ame]


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

Oh Cygnet!
I am glad you got to tell that story from your side. Too funny.

We had 'friends' that would bring their horrid dogs with them everywhere they went.
We were all at a friend's house and sure enough, they showed up and let the dogs pile out of the car.'
They found the guts etc.. of a deer my friend had butchered that day.
The dogs gorged on it apparently.
And went back home and harked up about 30+ of deer guts all over the house.
Oddly, they stopped letting their dogs travel with them everywhere..


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