About 5 years ago, while living in Jumeriah Lake Towers, my husband, sister and I came home to an awful stankity stench!
It wasn’t there when we left that morning, but boy was it there with a vengeance that evening! We sniffed around to find the source.
All noses led to the extra bathroom that we used for storage. Because who needs a third bathroom in a 2 bedroom apartment and doesn’t need more storage?
I slowly opened the door and quickly slammed it shut! But the stankity stench had already escaped! It slapped me in the face, spit on my shoe and said bad things about my Mama!
Did something crawl in there and die? Did something rot? Did the neighbor play a practical joke on us? I needed to know!
I put on goggles, rubber gloves, a face mask and shouted “I’m going in coach!”
It was like doing tear gas training. I searched through everything and found nothing but a boiling, thickening stench. It smelled like a rodent ate blue cheese and sulphur on a cracker, threw it back up, died and it’s carcass was rotting while stuck in a sewer.
I went downstairs and told the doorman “It’s urgent! I have a wicked witch of a stench that needs taken care of! Can you please, please send a handyman?”
I went back to the apartment and my husband was burning bukhoor. The apartment, then smelled like a bukhoor burning carcass in a sewer.
Luckily the handyman came within the hour. As soon as he walked in, he took a whiff and said “Madam, you need to flush the toilet.” I was like “Huh? We always flush! This is a home of flushers!”
He explained that if you don’t flush a toilet (even if it’s not used) for more than a few months it will smell!
So, I climbed back into the closet, reached for the toilet and FLUSHED! And you know what? Within 15 minutes the stench was completely gone!
In my current apartment we also use the small extra bathroom for storage. I now make sure to flush it once a month to avoid the return of the evil stankity stench (insert evil laugh: bwahahaha!)
However, one ripe September morning upon returning from a summer away it did act as my welcome home gift. I now make sure to ask someone to go to our place and flush for us if we travel longer than a month.
A New Yorker in Dubai 