Why does the bathroom smell like KFC?
August 10, 2005 – 8:24 pmEver since Michele and I moved into our apartment, we’ve been battling an odd aroma that seems to originate under the cabinets in the bathrooms. It smells like fried chicken.
Now, we’ve heard some strange things about the previous tenant. She was an elderly woman who apparently ran some sort of day care business out of the apartment. That explains why there is no grass out back. Several kids constantly running around in the single square yard of area that we call our back yard would most certainly kill all plant life that existed there in a short amount of time. It was growing back nicely… until we decided to spray down some herbicide and make way for the 6 inch layer of gravel we plan on spreading out.
The entire apartment is tiled. Kids mean stains. Carpet and stains don’t go together nicely. So she had the whole place tiled. That totally works for me though, as I don’t like carpet. It’s a germ farm if you ask me. There’s a certain amount of detritus that gets into carpet and Does.Not.Come.Out. Stains in carpet also happen to be one of the many banes of my existence. And since Michele is not the most graceful person I know, it makes me feel safe.
Also, this old lady had multiple cats. Cats that she was not able to properly care for. One of our hall closets has a cat door installed in it. There is no proper flooring in that closet. It’s just the bare concrete foundation. That way, she could leave the litter box in there, the cats could get to it through their own custom doorway which sealed behind them, and the cat shit could pile up for eons without her having to encounter it. It’s an elegant solution, at the cost of an odor that would slowly build, allowing her to become accustomed to it as it grew stronger. For us however, it was quite the shock to open that closet door the first time. The smell is slowly going away, but if we’re out of the house for more than 24 hours, the smell becomes quite obvious when we first return. This means we’re getting used to it as well.
So there used to be some weird old lady that lived here. As interesting as all that is, it doesn’t explain the fried chicken smell from under the cabinets.
This morning, as I shuffled out of the bedroom in my morning daze, I caught a waft of chicken near the bathroom door. It seemed a bit stronger than usual, but I’m not in a position to ponder anything for too long that early in the morning.
We walked outside for our first smoke and soda break of the day, eyes barely open, and it smelled like KFC out there. I immediately traced the odor to its source; our neighbors house. Yes, our old, grey haired Mexican neighbor was cookin’ him some ethnic food which smelled strikingly like the aroma from under our bathroom sink. Mystery solved. Sort of.
I mean, how does that sort of thing get through the walls and into our bathroom? Hearing your neighbors through the walls is one thing, but smelling them? I never would have imagined.
