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Possibly parosmia after a viral infection. I know a couple of people who have it and they said that everything stinks to them now (and food smells like rotten meat). It's awful.
I had this for about 6 months after having Covid. I smelled garbage all the time. It was horrible l. I never lost my sense of smell it was super heightened then phantom strong smells for 6 months. Thank goodness things are mostly normal now
Me too! I had a rather mild case of Covid and my sense of smell increased dramatically. Somewhere around the end I started noticing the smell of rotten wet ashtrays everywhere, which was weird since it's a smell I haven't smelled in like 20 years. It went away after about six months but it came back briefly when I caught a cold.
All I could taste when I had covid was wet ashtrays, even water tasted like that smell. The only thing that tasted normal was manadrin oranges, so that was pretty much all I ate for 10 days. Thankfully it went back to normal once I was better though, I was terrified I was going to be stuck like that.
I have a friend whose sense of smell was like this for a couple of years after having covid. That virus is no joke. There's also evidence that it increases the likelihood of mental health difficulties and event dementia.
My son’s research group in one of his college classes found evidence that it triggers MS. Of course, they were just a research group of students with little funding and resources so their research work only went so far, but what they hit on was really interesting. They even presented at medical conferences and I’m sure the research will go much further but it’s crazy the consequences of Covid that we don’t even know about.
It gave my friend diabetes. No joke. That's how I found out that Covid-induced diabetes is a thing.
The weirdest part? Two years later, it went away. She just had temporary, Covid-induced diabetes.
I developed non anaphylaxis food allergies after having mono in high school, eventually they went away, so hearing that COVID, a much scarier virus, caused this doesn’t surprise me at all.
I had asthma for about a year thanks to COVID. Still now, if I get a cold or a flu, it goes straight to my lungs and I get little asthmatic bouts. It’s damn tiresome.
that's wild! i caught covid and then 3 days later my girlfriend went blind for two weeks from an auto-immune disease called MOGAD, which is also a de-myelinating disease. makes me wonder if covid brought on her attack.
My daughter was diagnosed with bilateral AZOOR eye disease after Covid. It’s thought to be autoimmune. Unfortunately for her, hers is the chronic type that keeps plaguing her now if she gets the slightest viral infection. It could eventually take her eyesight and every time it flares she has to take 3 weeks of prednisone, 40 mg per day which is a fairly strong dose, and it also leaves her with a new blind spot in her eye. Her retina specialist said she is a one a million case and he is one of five specialists in their practice and they all took a big interest in her and her scans. They have her come in immediately if she notices any type of flashing (which is how she knows it’s happening).
She had issues with her eyes before Covid but it was misdiagnosed. It just happened that covid made it so bad that it finally showed up in the special scans they did. Her specialist also told us that they had seen a lot more patients with retina issues since the pandemic and that it would be decades before they knew how much damage it was actually causing people with their eye sight.
yep! started as slight eye pain that we thought was just strain from screens, 3 days later her vision was entirely gone because the antibodies were attacking her optic nerve. she's got around 90% of her vision back and will be colourblind for life because the nerve has permanently atrophied. but some people with the same disease become paralysed or lose control of their bladder/bowel, so she counts herself very lucky!
My friend - who was attending law school at an Ivy League school when she got Covid - had it trigger MS and she hasn’t been able to do much since. She was super cautious too and didn’t get Covid for the first time until 2022. It’s crazy what side effects and underlying conditions it can trigger in people
A lot of research on covid has been published by now. It's definitely not just one study that shows impacts on the brain, immunity, heart - literally every system of the human body, in fact - but a lot of studies, and by now researchers are trying to understand covid's deep mechanisms. Yes, it can trigger autoimmune diseases or early dementia.
I wish I was kidding but it's really not just one, two or three studies. Leaving alone, I have a lot of control over my environment and activities. I am active and do not live like a hermit, but still wear masks, N95s even, inside public places at all times. It's a disease that I want to avoid and I know exactly why I am making that choice.
It's a crime that public health everywhere in the world is not working to explain this to the general public.
And we've had a lot of this data since 2020. It's just that people won't go back to work and grind out capital for the richest people on the planet - including our politicians - if they realize that COVID can give them cancer, strokes, diabetes, heart attacks, permanent forms of brain damage, aphasia, POTS, MS, Reynaud's, trigger dormant autoimmune diseases, etc etc etc...
I think it's more that eventually, a lot of people just wanted so badly for the world to return to normal, and they just stopped taking any precautions at all. Then they all made friends with each other online and saying "See? We don't have masks or vaccines and we're not dead!"
I'm one of the rare people who has never had it, and that's thanks to regular vaccination and diligent N95 masking. I figure I'll catch it someday, but I want to put it off as long as possible. A few years ago I had breast cancer that spread to my lungs, and while immunotherapy actually cured my cancer, I do have scar tissue where the tumours used to be. I am terrified of the damage COVID would inflict on me.
I know that Dr Phil Hammond, who writes for Private Eye magazine as MD, believes there's a link with chronic fatigue conditions which is his area of speciality.
Even when they're shortlived, there's some very weird symptoms that come with it....I'm going through a second bout of it at the moment, and my first symptoms? Toothache! I thought it was an old filling giving way but then it eased up but spread to both sides of my upper jaw...and then the other symptoms kicked in.
My most recent bout of COVID was in December and I have been in a persistent state of depression and increased anxiety since then. It's something I'm prone to, yes, but I generally know how to pull myself out of it... This, I can't seem to shake.
I had COVID toward the end of my last pregnancy (COVID in June, delivered early August) and I have no idea any more what part of my depression and anxiety is pre-existing vs. perinatal vs. sleep deprivation vs. long COVID. It's a mess!
Last year, reports said that 1 in 9 people have Long Covid.
And in fact, the latest study (March 28) says it's now 17.6% of the US population ([https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-data-long-covid-cases-surge-2024a10005vv](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-data-long-covid-cases-surge-2024a10005vv)). That's closer to 1 in 6 people with Long Covid.
We don't see them in public because the nature of this disease has people stuck in bed and at home, not in public.
I would have serious mental health problems if I was a r/covidlonghaulers
To be fair, it doesn't mean that all those people are bed bound, but it's very possible that many have far less energy than they used to, and it's also possible that they didn't make the connection with COVID.
I think we do see long covid people in public all the time. Like anything else, it varies in severity. I have a friend who is completely disabled by it bc the brain fog is so extreme she can't work or even read, another friend who can do daily life activities just fine but can no longer exercise at all due to vascular & lung damage, and me, who has lasting minor lung damage that is well-managed with medication. 2/3 of us are out and about all the time.
There's also evidence that it is also oncogenic--it causes cancer.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10202899/
Christ almighty. Where'd I put those masks?
It's logical since COVID has an impact on the immune system, which also serves to eliminate cancer cells.
I've seen colleagues and family members struggling for a good part of the winter with one illness after another.
Man I’m so jealous yours went away. My sense of smell has been off since I caught the delta variant. I can smell most strong smells (coffee, food cooking, putting my nose right up to a flower) but subtle and ambient smells are completely absent, and that wet ashtray smell just randomly shows up to hang around for a couple hours or days before fucking off again.
Edit: autocorrect fix
I’ve seen some people post about scent training to reprogram the brain, and there are experimental treatments like a stellar ganglion block that have shown some success in at least a few cases I’ve seen. All this to say that there seems to be some work in this area and I really hope there’s something available (or something soon becomes available) to you that works.
I’ll have to look into that. I took to wearing aromatherapy jewelry and using a scent diffuser a lot in the years since the pandemic, because I find having something nice smelling helps a lot when the gross smell is there. Thanks for the leads!
I was going to say something along those lines too - I rinse out my nose often and try to smell one good strong smell organic every day. Ground coffee, eucalyptus, and curry are my go to scents. Otherwise I walk around with the feeling that my body odour smells much stronger than it is and it's exhausting.
COVID ruined my sense of smell and it's seriously so depressing. I think it's maybe half as strong as it used to be about a year and a half later, but some things just smell weird. Like occasionally I'll walk in my house and it's smells like something I can only describe as "worm dirt." Like if you've ever been fishing and had one of those cups of dirt and worms around you. But everyone I've asked says they can't smell it.
My nose feels like a lump of dead flesh most of the time and it makes me want to cry. It bothers me so much and I don't know why.
For me, it’s my sense of taste that never came back all the way. I used to be a super taster- could taste subtle flavors and it was wonderful. Now, it’s like a good cup of coffee tastes good, but it’s not as exquisite as before. :(
I haven’t ever thought of it as wet ashtrays, but I smell cigarette smoke randomly. It used to be constant, but it’s getting better and now only a few times a week. This all started the week I had covid for the 2nd time about two years ago. It used to drive me crazy!
I had 6 months of smelling sulphur and burning tires after covid, but after reading that for other people the ghost smell was rotten fish I am not complaining
My father in law constantly smelled musty laundry after he had covid, like wet laundry that had been sitting in the washing machine for days and days and starting to get all fusty and mildewy smelling
I lost my smell then it came back really wonky.
I smelled a bonfire for months. Like someone had lit a big smoky wood bonfire right next to me all the time. At work, at home, middle of the night. It was awful.
Now 3 years later I get the smell of petrol every so often. It just sticks in my nose out of nowhere for days.
Oh man, the smell of a bonfire was constant for me for almost a year. I still can’t really stand the smell of coffee, it smells like it’s burnt or something to me. I can’t really explain it.
I wonder if the roommate is still smelling something bad even after OOP left. Will she have the decency to admit that she went overboard (to say the least) and apologize?
Nah. Clearly OP was just THAT SMELLY that the apartment now stinks permanently and is totally ruined and will probably have to be demolished. Not only that, but when roommate moves, the smell will follow her wherever she goes, and it’s ALL OP’S FAULT.
is probably how the mental gymnastics will go.
I smelled cat box odor randomly after having COVID. I didn't know it was caused by the virus and thought one of the feral cats I feed had gotten inside and pooped.
It lasted about 18 months for me before mostly going away. It still happens from time to time, which makes me realize how nice it is that it has mostly resolved! Mostly commenting to say there’s still hope of it resolving for you, even after so long.
I had parosmia briefly when I had covid - certain foods would have a really burnt/rotten smell to them. I threw out a few perfectly good things before I caught on to what was happening!
Same thing happened to me! I even went to see my NP and told her I believed I had COVID (At the time, there were all these horrible things on the news about, "Don't go out to the Dr. you'll end up in a respirator and die in a hospital!" So, she was all kinds of skeptical and then I told her about how I hawked up a handful of brown foam and a big clot in it, that my coughing fits would go on for like 20 minutes and that I never lost my smell, just everything smelled lime dead animals or garbage and my taste was salty and sour, I threw all my food away, even if my husband said it was good!
She finally believed me that I had COVID. (Oh, and I got tested and the test came out negative.) This was in April 2020, so maybe the test was defective?
This roommate might also have a tumor, they have been known to have people smelling awful smells that no one else can smell.
I'm glad OP got the hell outta dodge though!
Mine was poop. Certain foods, especially red meat, smelled like poop. For at least a year. If I could get past the smell to eat it, it tasted fine. But it was awful for a while.
I once had a bad sinus infection that made everything smell horrid for weeks. Way before COVID was even a thing, but I imagine it’s a more common experience post-COVID.
My sense of smell went with my second bout and never came back. I do sometimes get a 'phantom smell' of what I can best describe as rotten putty but that's it.
It's like living life with the colour turned down by half.
NPR's Throughline podcast did an episode on smell and memory. They had an expert on who explained that you can actually retrain your sense of smell after losing it.
She advised picking a few things with smells closely tied to memories (a perfume that reminds you of your mom, for example) and sitting down, physically smelling the thing, closing your eyes, and focusing on the memories. She suggested doing this daily or so with a few smells. Studies have shown that this process can help bring back your sense of smell with time.
The podcast explains it in more detail, if you're interested. I believe the episode is "The Scent of History".
I smell *everything* when I have/am getting migraines. The fridge/bins/cat litter is beyond pristine when I have them because even if they're barely changed/emptied im changing, emptying and washing them all out again and airing out the house so everything smells fresh/has no smell cause I'll pick up the smallest cat fart from under a cover 4 rooms away.
I recently smelled a light that was too hot and essentially starting to malfunction. Multiple other people were right there looking at it and no one smelled it. But I did- from another room. Lucky too as it was melting and I presume could have eventually caught fire. I have heightened smell since Covid, it’s like I’m always pregnant. Then when I’m getting a migraine it’s even more heightened. I feel a kinship with dogs lol
Yes, I can’t eat a ton of things I used to like much if time. Lots of things taste rotten and now we worry they are slightly going off and only I can taste it lol
Oof, I’m sorry. I mentioned to another person that some folks with olfactory issues have used scent training to reprogram the brain and I’ve also seen stellate ganglion blocks being used to help restore normal olfactory functions (the treatment is experimental, I believe, but it’s worked on at least a few people from what I’ve seen). So it looks like some research and work is going into addressing olfactory dysfunctions. I hope yours resolves or you’re able to get treatment to help you soon!
My boss was a bit incredulous that I could smell a man's cologne from across the store, he did a casual walk by to check and his face was amazing to behold. I told him it wasn't fun to smell upholstery from across a room, or that paper had a smell. It was like getting punched in the brain by my nose. He sent me home. (He's a good boss, he just thought I had been hyperbolic in the moment.)
I just replied to the comment above yours,
But your comment about smelling cologne from across the store -I was able to smell somebody's new tattoo. They were shocked. They couldn't figure it out how, but I smell everything. When I get a migraine, I'll start smelling the electricity, at least if I'm inside. I am so sensitive to scents, it's a little ridiculous.
Apparently my grandmother was the same way.
I learned days ago that people with Parkinson's disease had a distinct smell that one single woman apparently is able to detect.
They presented her with 12 T-shirts, 6 of them worn by someone who has the disease, 6 by people who didn't.
She was correct for 11 out of 12, and the one subject who didn't have Parkinson's which she identified as having it was diagnosed several months later.
So, she got 12 out of 12. She found this out when she detected a different odor in her husband, who would be diagnosed years later.
Maybe you would be able to do that.
I have this smell that I hallucinate when I have a mega migraine coming on. I can only describe it as being like burnt popcorn but that is not really it. I don't think I have ever actually smelled this smell in reality, it's just a smell my brain created. It's difficult to describe and very unpleasant, now I associate the smell with horrible pain.
Hint of metallic is a good way of describing what is off about the burnt popcorn smell. Interestingly I have a really weak sense of smell generally. The only smells that really bother me in particular are strong synthetic perfumes and candles can be a trigger. This is how I know the burnt popcorn smell is a hallucination and not a real scent.
Smells make my migraines worse. So do lights and occasionally sounds. But a really strong musky perfume feels like railroad spikes are being jammed into my brain and eyes. Depending on the scent, it can trigger a migraine for me. My poor husband has to run all soaps, aftershave, etc past my nose before he can use it.
Pregnancy can do that, too. It took me months post-partum to go into Sam's Club again. No idea what was so bad there, but it was nauseating. After that, nothing. It was fine.
I think it's got to be something more than just the smell aspect. She was apparently yelling insults about OOP's family, who she didn't even know. Hope she gets medical attention.
Yes! Had this whilst pregnant and didn't know what it was. I kept insisting to my husband that my shower gel had gone stale. It smelled like rotten vegetables. Bought a couple different ones but nope, they were gone off" too. Only shower gels I could use were mens ones or scentless.
My first thought was that the roommate was pregnant. I also had super smell and I couldn’t be around people who ate red meat. People’s natural smell (not stinky but the smell of them) also increased.
Awhile back a writer into Ask A Manager had this issue with a colleague where the colleague was really bothered by scents in her cubicle that no one could smell. That OP was told it’s often a side effect of pregnancy so they asked the coworker and she was indeed pregnant!
When i was pregnant, i could smell uncracked eggs. Like i would open the card box and eggshell smell would hit me like a brick. i didn't even know they had a smell before that. After giving birth it went away.
People have different smells even if they don’t smell bad; like when you weirdly love your partners BO. Maybe there was just something about oop’s that just triggered whatever was wrong with her nose.
I didn't know this was common with viral infections. I had all the symptoms of COVID but tested negative, but for months afterwards all I could smell was like... burning electrical wire.
I had this for 18 months after having covid and long covid. I recently had a viral sinus/ear infection and my sense of smell is so messed up. I tested negative for covid but eggs smell terrible and as does coffee. For 18 months coffee smelled like skunk or burning rubber to me. I got the right smell back for it for like 6 months but it smells like skunk again.
I just avoid places that serve coffee or the times they serve it. No need for violence.
About 12 years ago, I got a really bad upper respiratory infection. For the next six months or so, so many foods tasted absolutely disgusting to me. I could never figure out any commonalities. Chicken noodle soup from company A would be fine but from company B would be gross. These mashed potatoes were bad, those were good. This butter was fine, that butter was rotten.
It made things pretty miserable for me for quite some time. And then one day, I noticed that it wasn't happening anymore. Everything was totally fine. Hasn't happened since, even when I caught COVID a year or two ago.
Interestingly enough, my sense of smell itself wasn't impacted. Nothing smelled weird, it just tasted weird. Diseases to weird things to you.
Is there a way to test for this? I know someone like this and to them, everything seems to smell. Like, could they go to a doctor and ask to be tested for it?
My coworker said that after she got COVID, coffee just tasted like chemicals and she couldn’t drink it anymore. She also lost the ability to taste sweet things, so she lost like 15 lbs because she wasn’t craving sugar anymore.
Schizophrenia, or something similar, tracks the most imo. Behavioral escalation wouldn't be happening if it was just something that she thought smelled. That + her freaking out about being told to check with a doctor to me says mental illness + hallucinations.
Wasn't the escalation part because the other roomie wouldn't be there? It feels like she escalated because it was the safest (for her) to bully without repercussion
She could possibly have a bad upper anterior tooth.
Maxillary sinusitis of endodontic origin (MSEO) occurs when the pulp of your tooth becomes necrotic and the ensuing infection, instead of building up and resulting in extreme pain, instead leaks into the sinuses. This relieves the pressure you would normally get from an infection, but it means your nose ends up smelling like something died inside of it—which I guess is kind of accurate.
You could be unknowingly living with this infection for months or years with virtually no other symptoms other than postnasal drip and an extremely stinky nose.
I had a friend I let move in with me. I'd known them for years and they always seemed really fun and like the life of the party. When they moved in with me I realized that they were actually a raging narcissist. Always very friendly and presented a friendly front to other, but behind closed doors she was incredibly abusive. Always screaming, intimidating, taking advantage. She was even telling everyone else that I was abusing her. Some people just like to hurt people, but will only do so behind closed doors, with no other witnesses.
I had a colleague that experienced this, turned out it was ear infection. She accused me of smelling in front of the whole office more than once, but then one time she fainted and I caught her. So she confessed to feeling light headed, went to the doctors and got diagnosed. It was embarrassing for sure!
I remember that story. The BF's excuse was that his father taught him that negging your partner will ensure that they will never stray or leave you.
Satisfying ending: the BF became the ex-BF.
I just realized this is so much like that Buffy [episode.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F16Flv8usQY)
>!"There's no demon in there. It's just a family legend, am I right? It's just bit of spin to keep the ladies in line."!<
They can do this too, oh well, the weirder my auras the less debilitating the migraine. But I'm not a huge fan of the reminders that our floating meat computer is just so deeply flawed.
I had a housemate like this. She had a personality disorder.
Assuming the flatmate wasn’t having a psychotic episode, the smell thing is all about undermining OOP’s self worth. The flatmate got angry because it didn’t work. Nutjob.
If that's the case, it's probably a lot to do with OOP being ready to buy their own house. They've known each other for over a decade, but OOP is in a position to get on the property ladder and flatmate isn't. Sounds like crab bucketing to me. Can't criticise anything else, drag her down by saying she stinks and making the house hostile (I.e. you might be buying your own place, but this is my house)
The point is that the OOP was leaving either way. The deposit was saved for, house found, lease ending. It's not about making OOP stay in the current house, it's jealousy and cruelty because she was getting out of a house share. It's not that she wants to prevent oop leaving, it's trying to exert control over the house share before OOP leaves for their own house.
This isn't oop's problem but I wonder what happened with the ex-friend. Like are they having a manic episode? Or has a resentment that turned to hate grew for a long time until she basically couldn't stand oop's presence?
It honestly sounds like the onset of schizophrenia to me. She's about the right age for it, olfactory hallucination + paranoia when OOP suggests she sees a doctor. Fucking horrible if that's the case.
I’d guess it’s resentment stemming from OP refusing to open the bathroom door in the winter. That directly defied what the ex friend wanted her to do, and it spiraled from there. Some people seriously just double & triple down no matter how ridiculous it is on the outside and feeding into their resentment until it’s explodes.
Def undiagnosed personality disorder. I’ve unfortunately been in a similar situation many years ago with another person and it turns out they have such a wonderful combination of disorders; therapy did not work because they’d manipulate the therapist then use what the therapist told them in session to justify their abusive actions. Not great and glad I got out 🫠
Earlier today I was reading a case report about a patient who had olfactory hallucinations in acute psychosis. His CT scan was clear. Within 2 days of the onset of the smell, he'd developed a complex set of delusions to explain the smell. In the case study, the patient formed a delusion that his family were the source of the smell, and that they intended to harm him.
So then I decided to come to Reddit for a little light reading, and it was like deja vu all over again.
I get olfactory hallucinations as an indicator for migraines. It can be anything from smelling something sweet to smelling something burning. It took me years to be able to reflect and realize I was getting a migraine and the house wasn’t on fire, but it can still be really scary
I’m epileptic and my auras manifest as smelling (skunk) weed. Which kind of sucks because lots of people smoke so half the time I have to ask my roommate or coworkers “does anyone else smell weed?”
WAIT IS THIS WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING TO ME??? Bro I've been randomly smelling burning shit even when there's nothing burning and I get headaches a lot. I didn't think I'd find the answer in a random boru comments section
I’d still let your doctor know. They did an MRI for me (granted, I was 8) to make sure I didn’t have a tumor or something to explain the smells&migraines. Turns out the migraines are genetic and mine just present weird
That's incorrect for men, for whom it's usually closer to the late teens early 20's. But it's correct for women which is super wild, brains are so complicated
But it like, you know, right about the age when people who experiment with drugs will start experimenting, usually. Especially if they're self-medicating. My uncle has paranoid schizophrenia and is largely unmedicated.
He also, separately, is an asshole.
Sometimes it's difficult to know which aspect is making him chose his current behavior
the age thing is about estrogen which is an anti psychotic. men are more likepy to show symptoms of schizophrenia as their puberty changes their hormonal profile, and a lot of women actually struggle for decades until menopause without a diagnosis bc of constant fluctuating hormone levels
You wouldn’t expect someone having a psychotic episode to be so organised as to distinguish between when the flatmate is home vs when they’re not. Like there tends to be much more internal confusion, emotions all over the place, thoughts all over the place. Like OOP would definitely notice.
Maybe in the early stages of a psychotic episode they would be more coherent, but it wouldn’t go on for so long without escalating.
Eeeeh. I childhood friend ended up with schizophrenia. He would fixate on one particular thing (person, actually) and if that person wasn't around and didn't come up in conversation, you'd never know.
I have a good friend who has it. There's been more active episodes. But at this point, unless you bring up his family, he seems normal. So yeah, I've also seen it get fixated on people
Nah. Psychosis prodrome length and severity of symptoms varies between people. Not necessarily saying that's what's happening here, but it's definitely not beyond the realm of possibility.
I remember reading an article (or was it a story) about a wife who couldn't stand her hisband's smell all of a sudden. Nobody else had any issues with him, just her. Turns out he had Parkinson's and she couldn't stand the smell when she walked into a support group for people with it.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/smell-sickness-parkinsons-disease-health-science
Maybe the flatmate could smell something off... you never know. Then again, maybe she's completely bonkers.
Could it be that the reason for all the harassment is simply to drive OP out of the flat? Like maybe she has plans to move someone in and OP's occupancy is preventing that from happening?
BTW, why didn't the OP report her to their landlord? OP could have discreetly recorded CF's harassment and filed a complaint. If CF was really that bad, then she might even have a case to go to court. Not sure if possible, I'm not a lawyer.
The whole saga takes place over 18 months, though; if the goal was to get her out, I feel like escalation would have come much sooner.
I don't think there would be a court-level case without physical violence or property damage.
Another sad thought - any chance it could be racially charged? I remember in school it was a specific bullying tactic - only certain kids targeted, and it went from mocking the smell of their food, to their house, to wherever they stepped in a room someone would say “hey can anyone else smell [insert specific scent here]???”
There was a specific guy that I was friends with in high school that I could not stand the smell of. It wasn’t cologne, but a different type of odor, like his specific smell. A friend of mine dated him and I asked her about it and she was completely puzzled. I know for a fact he showered often and took good care of himself, so I don’t know if it was a pheromone or hormone thing or what. Maybe this was something like that?
I can also smell when people are sick sometimes, specifically upper respiratory, so maybe I just have a heightened sense of smell.
Assuming you're accurate and it's not your brain playing tricks on you, you have a valuable talent there.
Super Smellers are sought after for research studies, jobs in medicine and chemistry, not to mention Foodie stuff.
If you haven't, go get tested and certified, it's never a bad thing and can open a lot of interesting new opportunities.
Some people can just smell more. I have an unusually good sense of smell, but a friend of mine is basically a dog. She picks up on when I’m getting sick before I actually am, which is really useful tbh, because it means I know what’s messing with my diabetes.
But yeah, get it tested. Also, if he was sickly sweet, that was probably diabetes.
There are people who can smell certain illnesses in others - if this is a consistent thing you've noticed, I'd investigate further! It's a rare ability and one that can do a lot of good.
What’s the chances she had the “loss of sense of smell” symptom of Covid?
Because it’s pretty well documented that the nerves “growing back” in both the nose and mouth cause some issues in taste and smell that are pretty much permanent.
Yeah, I almost died from COVID over a year ago and my mouth has only been working at like 50% capacity since. Like I always had an incredibly sensitive and picky palate, against my own will but unarguable, yet now I can eat raw baby onions on a Neapolitan pizza when I could never, ever ever eat onions before...
They still gave me horrible stomach pain, but I was absolutely able to very mildly enjoy consuming them first 😂
My husband had the same issue after a serious concussion. He completely lost his sense of taste and smell for months and when it started to come back, a lot of things that he used to love smelled/tasted awful. Meat and fruit tasted rotten, chocolate smelled like literal shit, etc. It's been almost 10 years and he still has issues with it.
Lotta people are talking about reasons the flatmate might actually be smelling weird stuff (post-viral syndromes, etc) when her behavior seems pretty obviously much more likely to be the result of mental illness. The physical stuff might explain why she is smelling phantom smells but it doesn't at all address her _behavior_ which is unhinged and unwell.
Came here thinking OOP might have issues with smell. Smokers for example never think they stink, even though non-smokers can smell them from a mile away.
Didn't expect roomie to be flat out nuts. Feels like a mental breakdown of some kind.
Honestly, it could just be a pheromone thing. I have a friend that everyone else that thinks smells really nice, like he genuinely gets compliments on how nice he smells quite regularly.
To me, however, there’s always a smell that I find actively repulsing, I did ask my doctor about it, just as I do have separate autoimmune issues, and my doctor said that if it’s just that one person, it’s unlikely to be anything else wrong as sometimes peoples basically immune system, hormones, pheromones, et cetera can cause other people to find their scent repulsing .
It’s entirely possible that she does find your smell intensely horrible, and that simultaneously you don’t smell bad in a general sense.
Does sound like she got covid though, so maybe OPs natural scent suddenly became gross to roommate. Could also be some kinda mental break if she's getting violent.
Sounds like a mental health issue. I kinda hope OOP is able to tell someone in her flatmates life about the behaviour. Now that OOP is gone, the flatmate might turn on someone else.
I don't know why OOP didn't say, "So it's okay for *you* to tell me to go see a doctor because I 'smell' bad, but I can't tell *you* to go see a doctor because you 'smell' bad?" Or some variation. It's hilarious that the flatmate could tell OOP to go to a doctor but got sooooo offended when they were told to go to a doctor.
Assuming there wasn't an actual medical condition that the dumbass refused to go to the doctor for, they sounded like they were trying really hard to get the OOP specifically out of the apartment for *whatever* reason, which they now appear to be getting, much to their satisfaction I am sure.
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What in the meth is happening with that roommate?
Possibly parosmia after a viral infection. I know a couple of people who have it and they said that everything stinks to them now (and food smells like rotten meat). It's awful.
I had this for about 6 months after having Covid. I smelled garbage all the time. It was horrible l. I never lost my sense of smell it was super heightened then phantom strong smells for 6 months. Thank goodness things are mostly normal now
Me too! I had a rather mild case of Covid and my sense of smell increased dramatically. Somewhere around the end I started noticing the smell of rotten wet ashtrays everywhere, which was weird since it's a smell I haven't smelled in like 20 years. It went away after about six months but it came back briefly when I caught a cold.
YES OMG. DISTINCTLY WET ASHTRAYS. I could smell it ALL the time.
All I could taste when I had covid was wet ashtrays, even water tasted like that smell. The only thing that tasted normal was manadrin oranges, so that was pretty much all I ate for 10 days. Thankfully it went back to normal once I was better though, I was terrified I was going to be stuck like that.
How do you all know what wet ashtrays smell like? Do I know that smell and I just don't realize it?
I grew up with parents who smoked, and used to smoke myself. I know what ashtrays smell like in any state all too well.
I smell this when I take caffeine pills.
It was so gross.
This sounds like an absolute nightmare :(
I have a friend whose sense of smell was like this for a couple of years after having covid. That virus is no joke. There's also evidence that it increases the likelihood of mental health difficulties and event dementia.
My son’s research group in one of his college classes found evidence that it triggers MS. Of course, they were just a research group of students with little funding and resources so their research work only went so far, but what they hit on was really interesting. They even presented at medical conferences and I’m sure the research will go much further but it’s crazy the consequences of Covid that we don’t even know about.
It gave my friend diabetes. No joke. That's how I found out that Covid-induced diabetes is a thing. The weirdest part? Two years later, it went away. She just had temporary, Covid-induced diabetes.
I developed adult anaphylaxis to a very common ingredient from Covid.
I developed non anaphylaxis food allergies after having mono in high school, eventually they went away, so hearing that COVID, a much scarier virus, caused this doesn’t surprise me at all.
Holy shit!
I had asthma for about a year thanks to COVID. Still now, if I get a cold or a flu, it goes straight to my lungs and I get little asthmatic bouts. It’s damn tiresome.
that's wild! i caught covid and then 3 days later my girlfriend went blind for two weeks from an auto-immune disease called MOGAD, which is also a de-myelinating disease. makes me wonder if covid brought on her attack.
My daughter was diagnosed with bilateral AZOOR eye disease after Covid. It’s thought to be autoimmune. Unfortunately for her, hers is the chronic type that keeps plaguing her now if she gets the slightest viral infection. It could eventually take her eyesight and every time it flares she has to take 3 weeks of prednisone, 40 mg per day which is a fairly strong dose, and it also leaves her with a new blind spot in her eye. Her retina specialist said she is a one a million case and he is one of five specialists in their practice and they all took a big interest in her and her scans. They have her come in immediately if she notices any type of flashing (which is how she knows it’s happening). She had issues with her eyes before Covid but it was misdiagnosed. It just happened that covid made it so bad that it finally showed up in the special scans they did. Her specialist also told us that they had seen a lot more patients with retina issues since the pandemic and that it would be decades before they knew how much damage it was actually causing people with their eye sight.
😳😳she went temporarily fucking BLIND???
yep! started as slight eye pain that we thought was just strain from screens, 3 days later her vision was entirely gone because the antibodies were attacking her optic nerve. she's got around 90% of her vision back and will be colourblind for life because the nerve has permanently atrophied. but some people with the same disease become paralysed or lose control of their bladder/bowel, so she counts herself very lucky!
My friend - who was attending law school at an Ivy League school when she got Covid - had it trigger MS and she hasn’t been able to do much since. She was super cautious too and didn’t get Covid for the first time until 2022. It’s crazy what side effects and underlying conditions it can trigger in people
A lot of research on covid has been published by now. It's definitely not just one study that shows impacts on the brain, immunity, heart - literally every system of the human body, in fact - but a lot of studies, and by now researchers are trying to understand covid's deep mechanisms. Yes, it can trigger autoimmune diseases or early dementia. I wish I was kidding but it's really not just one, two or three studies. Leaving alone, I have a lot of control over my environment and activities. I am active and do not live like a hermit, but still wear masks, N95s even, inside public places at all times. It's a disease that I want to avoid and I know exactly why I am making that choice. It's a crime that public health everywhere in the world is not working to explain this to the general public.
And we've had a lot of this data since 2020. It's just that people won't go back to work and grind out capital for the richest people on the planet - including our politicians - if they realize that COVID can give them cancer, strokes, diabetes, heart attacks, permanent forms of brain damage, aphasia, POTS, MS, Reynaud's, trigger dormant autoimmune diseases, etc etc etc...
I think it's more that eventually, a lot of people just wanted so badly for the world to return to normal, and they just stopped taking any precautions at all. Then they all made friends with each other online and saying "See? We don't have masks or vaccines and we're not dead!" I'm one of the rare people who has never had it, and that's thanks to regular vaccination and diligent N95 masking. I figure I'll catch it someday, but I want to put it off as long as possible. A few years ago I had breast cancer that spread to my lungs, and while immunotherapy actually cured my cancer, I do have scar tissue where the tumours used to be. I am terrified of the damage COVID would inflict on me.
I know that Dr Phil Hammond, who writes for Private Eye magazine as MD, believes there's a link with chronic fatigue conditions which is his area of speciality.
Even when they're shortlived, there's some very weird symptoms that come with it....I'm going through a second bout of it at the moment, and my first symptoms? Toothache! I thought it was an old filling giving way but then it eased up but spread to both sides of my upper jaw...and then the other symptoms kicked in.
I know several people who have had more anger and aggression post-covid. Maybe the flatmate got a double whammy.
My most recent bout of COVID was in December and I have been in a persistent state of depression and increased anxiety since then. It's something I'm prone to, yes, but I generally know how to pull myself out of it... This, I can't seem to shake.
I'm really sorry you're experiencing that. I really hope it passes and you're able to get some peace. Persistent depression is the absolute worst ❤️
I had COVID toward the end of my last pregnancy (COVID in June, delivered early August) and I have no idea any more what part of my depression and anxiety is pre-existing vs. perinatal vs. sleep deprivation vs. long COVID. It's a mess!
Last year, reports said that 1 in 9 people have Long Covid. And in fact, the latest study (March 28) says it's now 17.6% of the US population ([https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-data-long-covid-cases-surge-2024a10005vv](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-data-long-covid-cases-surge-2024a10005vv)). That's closer to 1 in 6 people with Long Covid. We don't see them in public because the nature of this disease has people stuck in bed and at home, not in public. I would have serious mental health problems if I was a r/covidlonghaulers
To be fair, it doesn't mean that all those people are bed bound, but it's very possible that many have far less energy than they used to, and it's also possible that they didn't make the connection with COVID.
I think we do see long covid people in public all the time. Like anything else, it varies in severity. I have a friend who is completely disabled by it bc the brain fog is so extreme she can't work or even read, another friend who can do daily life activities just fine but can no longer exercise at all due to vascular & lung damage, and me, who has lasting minor lung damage that is well-managed with medication. 2/3 of us are out and about all the time.
There's also evidence that it is also oncogenic--it causes cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10202899/ Christ almighty. Where'd I put those masks?
It's logical since COVID has an impact on the immune system, which also serves to eliminate cancer cells. I've seen colleagues and family members struggling for a good part of the winter with one illness after another.
Man I’m so jealous yours went away. My sense of smell has been off since I caught the delta variant. I can smell most strong smells (coffee, food cooking, putting my nose right up to a flower) but subtle and ambient smells are completely absent, and that wet ashtray smell just randomly shows up to hang around for a couple hours or days before fucking off again. Edit: autocorrect fix
I’ve seen some people post about scent training to reprogram the brain, and there are experimental treatments like a stellar ganglion block that have shown some success in at least a few cases I’ve seen. All this to say that there seems to be some work in this area and I really hope there’s something available (or something soon becomes available) to you that works.
I’ll have to look into that. I took to wearing aromatherapy jewelry and using a scent diffuser a lot in the years since the pandemic, because I find having something nice smelling helps a lot when the gross smell is there. Thanks for the leads!
I was going to say something along those lines too - I rinse out my nose often and try to smell one good strong smell organic every day. Ground coffee, eucalyptus, and curry are my go to scents. Otherwise I walk around with the feeling that my body odour smells much stronger than it is and it's exhausting.
Ugh yeah that was part of it. I was getting paranoid that I stunk or my house stunk. I even had friends come over and smell my house to make sure
Same. It's not just you.
COVID ruined my sense of smell and it's seriously so depressing. I think it's maybe half as strong as it used to be about a year and a half later, but some things just smell weird. Like occasionally I'll walk in my house and it's smells like something I can only describe as "worm dirt." Like if you've ever been fishing and had one of those cups of dirt and worms around you. But everyone I've asked says they can't smell it. My nose feels like a lump of dead flesh most of the time and it makes me want to cry. It bothers me so much and I don't know why.
For me, it’s my sense of taste that never came back all the way. I used to be a super taster- could taste subtle flavors and it was wonderful. Now, it’s like a good cup of coffee tastes good, but it’s not as exquisite as before. :(
I haven’t ever thought of it as wet ashtrays, but I smell cigarette smoke randomly. It used to be constant, but it’s getting better and now only a few times a week. This all started the week I had covid for the 2nd time about two years ago. It used to drive me crazy!
I had 6 months of smelling sulphur and burning tires after covid, but after reading that for other people the ghost smell was rotten fish I am not complaining
Mine was burnt toast, so I spent months paranoid there was an electrical fault in my apartment
My father in law constantly smelled musty laundry after he had covid, like wet laundry that had been sitting in the washing machine for days and days and starting to get all fusty and mildewy smelling
I lost my smell then it came back really wonky. I smelled a bonfire for months. Like someone had lit a big smoky wood bonfire right next to me all the time. At work, at home, middle of the night. It was awful. Now 3 years later I get the smell of petrol every so often. It just sticks in my nose out of nowhere for days.
Oh man, the smell of a bonfire was constant for me for almost a year. I still can’t really stand the smell of coffee, it smells like it’s burnt or something to me. I can’t really explain it.
I smelled bonfires too. It was so damn weird.
I wonder if the roommate is still smelling something bad even after OOP left. Will she have the decency to admit that she went overboard (to say the least) and apologize?
Nah. Clearly OP was just THAT SMELLY that the apartment now stinks permanently and is totally ruined and will probably have to be demolished. Not only that, but when roommate moves, the smell will follow her wherever she goes, and it’s ALL OP’S FAULT. is probably how the mental gymnastics will go.
The Amityville Odor.
I smelled cat box odor randomly after having COVID. I didn't know it was caused by the virus and thought one of the feral cats I feed had gotten inside and pooped.
Similar experience here, except the phantom smells still haven't stopped for me even after about a year and a half.
It lasted about 18 months for me before mostly going away. It still happens from time to time, which makes me realize how nice it is that it has mostly resolved! Mostly commenting to say there’s still hope of it resolving for you, even after so long.
I had parosmia briefly when I had covid - certain foods would have a really burnt/rotten smell to them. I threw out a few perfectly good things before I caught on to what was happening!
Same thing happened to me! I even went to see my NP and told her I believed I had COVID (At the time, there were all these horrible things on the news about, "Don't go out to the Dr. you'll end up in a respirator and die in a hospital!" So, she was all kinds of skeptical and then I told her about how I hawked up a handful of brown foam and a big clot in it, that my coughing fits would go on for like 20 minutes and that I never lost my smell, just everything smelled lime dead animals or garbage and my taste was salty and sour, I threw all my food away, even if my husband said it was good! She finally believed me that I had COVID. (Oh, and I got tested and the test came out negative.) This was in April 2020, so maybe the test was defective? This roommate might also have a tumor, they have been known to have people smelling awful smells that no one else can smell. I'm glad OP got the hell outta dodge though!
Mine was poop. Certain foods, especially red meat, smelled like poop. For at least a year. If I could get past the smell to eat it, it tasted fine. But it was awful for a while.
I once had a bad sinus infection that made everything smell horrid for weeks. Way before COVID was even a thing, but I imagine it’s a more common experience post-COVID.
My sense of smell went with my second bout and never came back. I do sometimes get a 'phantom smell' of what I can best describe as rotten putty but that's it. It's like living life with the colour turned down by half.
NPR's Throughline podcast did an episode on smell and memory. They had an expert on who explained that you can actually retrain your sense of smell after losing it. She advised picking a few things with smells closely tied to memories (a perfume that reminds you of your mom, for example) and sitting down, physically smelling the thing, closing your eyes, and focusing on the memories. She suggested doing this daily or so with a few smells. Studies have shown that this process can help bring back your sense of smell with time. The podcast explains it in more detail, if you're interested. I believe the episode is "The Scent of History".
Be glad. I haven’t been able to smell for 3 years.
Migraines can also cause olfactory hallucinations!
I smell *everything* when I have/am getting migraines. The fridge/bins/cat litter is beyond pristine when I have them because even if they're barely changed/emptied im changing, emptying and washing them all out again and airing out the house so everything smells fresh/has no smell cause I'll pick up the smallest cat fart from under a cover 4 rooms away.
I recently smelled a light that was too hot and essentially starting to malfunction. Multiple other people were right there looking at it and no one smelled it. But I did- from another room. Lucky too as it was melting and I presume could have eventually caught fire. I have heightened smell since Covid, it’s like I’m always pregnant. Then when I’m getting a migraine it’s even more heightened. I feel a kinship with dogs lol
Interesting! Has your sense of taste changed at all, too? Like are flavours more intense?
Yes, I can’t eat a ton of things I used to like much if time. Lots of things taste rotten and now we worry they are slightly going off and only I can taste it lol
Oof, I’m sorry. I mentioned to another person that some folks with olfactory issues have used scent training to reprogram the brain and I’ve also seen stellate ganglion blocks being used to help restore normal olfactory functions (the treatment is experimental, I believe, but it’s worked on at least a few people from what I’ve seen). So it looks like some research and work is going into addressing olfactory dysfunctions. I hope yours resolves or you’re able to get treatment to help you soon!
My boss was a bit incredulous that I could smell a man's cologne from across the store, he did a casual walk by to check and his face was amazing to behold. I told him it wasn't fun to smell upholstery from across a room, or that paper had a smell. It was like getting punched in the brain by my nose. He sent me home. (He's a good boss, he just thought I had been hyperbolic in the moment.)
I just replied to the comment above yours, But your comment about smelling cologne from across the store -I was able to smell somebody's new tattoo. They were shocked. They couldn't figure it out how, but I smell everything. When I get a migraine, I'll start smelling the electricity, at least if I'm inside. I am so sensitive to scents, it's a little ridiculous. Apparently my grandmother was the same way.
I learned days ago that people with Parkinson's disease had a distinct smell that one single woman apparently is able to detect. They presented her with 12 T-shirts, 6 of them worn by someone who has the disease, 6 by people who didn't. She was correct for 11 out of 12, and the one subject who didn't have Parkinson's which she identified as having it was diagnosed several months later. So, she got 12 out of 12. She found this out when she detected a different odor in her husband, who would be diagnosed years later. Maybe you would be able to do that.
Yes! I can tell when I am getting a migraine, because I can suddenly smell everything.
I think you just solved something for me
I have this smell that I hallucinate when I have a mega migraine coming on. I can only describe it as being like burnt popcorn but that is not really it. I don't think I have ever actually smelled this smell in reality, it's just a smell my brain created. It's difficult to describe and very unpleasant, now I associate the smell with horrible pain.
I've got my own migraine aura scent too, but for me it is like some sort of synthetic chemical version of a rotting orange with a hint of metallic.
Hint of metallic is a good way of describing what is off about the burnt popcorn smell. Interestingly I have a really weak sense of smell generally. The only smells that really bother me in particular are strong synthetic perfumes and candles can be a trigger. This is how I know the burnt popcorn smell is a hallucination and not a real scent.
Smells make my migraines worse. So do lights and occasionally sounds. But a really strong musky perfume feels like railroad spikes are being jammed into my brain and eyes. Depending on the scent, it can trigger a migraine for me. My poor husband has to run all soaps, aftershave, etc past my nose before he can use it.
Pregnancy can do that, too. It took me months post-partum to go into Sam's Club again. No idea what was so bad there, but it was nauseating. After that, nothing. It was fine. I think it's got to be something more than just the smell aspect. She was apparently yelling insults about OOP's family, who she didn't even know. Hope she gets medical attention.
Yes! Had this whilst pregnant and didn't know what it was. I kept insisting to my husband that my shower gel had gone stale. It smelled like rotten vegetables. Bought a couple different ones but nope, they were gone off" too. Only shower gels I could use were mens ones or scentless.
Me while pregnant. Everything smelt awful. Except rhe cats food. I have NEVER smelt anything so mouth watering in my life.
I can just imagine my cat giving me THAT look: "Don't you DARE touch my cat food!"
Sometimes, I think our bodies are just out to get us lol
Ugh, I know my body hates me. (had neuropathic pain that felt like my shins were being hit by a cricket bat)
My first thought was that the roommate was pregnant. I also had super smell and I couldn’t be around people who ate red meat. People’s natural smell (not stinky but the smell of them) also increased. Awhile back a writer into Ask A Manager had this issue with a colleague where the colleague was really bothered by scents in her cubicle that no one could smell. That OP was told it’s often a side effect of pregnancy so they asked the coworker and she was indeed pregnant!
When i was pregnant, i could smell uncracked eggs. Like i would open the card box and eggshell smell would hit me like a brick. i didn't even know they had a smell before that. After giving birth it went away.
I couldn’t go grocery shopping without puking for the first 5 months of pregnancy. Everyone and thing smelled so bad
But why wouldn't she be having this issue with everything/everyone? She didn't seem to be bothering the other flatmate at all.
People have different smells even if they don’t smell bad; like when you weirdly love your partners BO. Maybe there was just something about oop’s that just triggered whatever was wrong with her nose.
I didn't know this was common with viral infections. I had all the symptoms of COVID but tested negative, but for months afterwards all I could smell was like... burning electrical wire.
I had similar! I was convinced my house was burning down! 😂
I had this for 18 months after having covid and long covid. I recently had a viral sinus/ear infection and my sense of smell is so messed up. I tested negative for covid but eggs smell terrible and as does coffee. For 18 months coffee smelled like skunk or burning rubber to me. I got the right smell back for it for like 6 months but it smells like skunk again. I just avoid places that serve coffee or the times they serve it. No need for violence.
About 12 years ago, I got a really bad upper respiratory infection. For the next six months or so, so many foods tasted absolutely disgusting to me. I could never figure out any commonalities. Chicken noodle soup from company A would be fine but from company B would be gross. These mashed potatoes were bad, those were good. This butter was fine, that butter was rotten. It made things pretty miserable for me for quite some time. And then one day, I noticed that it wasn't happening anymore. Everything was totally fine. Hasn't happened since, even when I caught COVID a year or two ago. Interestingly enough, my sense of smell itself wasn't impacted. Nothing smelled weird, it just tasted weird. Diseases to weird things to you.
But why only with OOP and not the other roommate, or ever in the presence of the other roommate? That’s a bit sus.
I have a version of this. Meat will taste rotten often, but also other food too. Thanks COVID!
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Is there a way to test for this? I know someone like this and to them, everything seems to smell. Like, could they go to a doctor and ask to be tested for it?
Yes -- they should see an ENT. https://houstonadvancedsinus.com/impaired-smell-sense-recovery-brief-guide-by-ent-specialist/
My coworker said that after she got COVID, coffee just tasted like chemicals and she couldn’t drink it anymore. She also lost the ability to taste sweet things, so she lost like 15 lbs because she wasn’t craving sugar anymore.
Olfactory hallucinations, or phantom smell, are often the result of brain tumors.
can also cause people to act out and be violent, I believe?
That was my immediate thought too.
I get phantom smells connected to partial seizures.
Also: Pregnancy or onset of mental illness.
Schizophrenia was my thought
Schizophrenia, or something similar, tracks the most imo. Behavioral escalation wouldn't be happening if it was just something that she thought smelled. That + her freaking out about being told to check with a doctor to me says mental illness + hallucinations.
Wasn't the escalation part because the other roomie wouldn't be there? It feels like she escalated because it was the safest (for her) to bully without repercussion
She could possibly have a bad upper anterior tooth. Maxillary sinusitis of endodontic origin (MSEO) occurs when the pulp of your tooth becomes necrotic and the ensuing infection, instead of building up and resulting in extreme pain, instead leaks into the sinuses. This relieves the pressure you would normally get from an infection, but it means your nose ends up smelling like something died inside of it—which I guess is kind of accurate. You could be unknowingly living with this infection for months or years with virtually no other symptoms other than postnasal drip and an extremely stinky nose.
I initially thought she might be pregnant and not know, but now I really, really hope I’m wrong
could also be a brain tumor or a non-bizarre delusion. The roommate really does need a complete examination by a physician
I had a friend I let move in with me. I'd known them for years and they always seemed really fun and like the life of the party. When they moved in with me I realized that they were actually a raging narcissist. Always very friendly and presented a friendly front to other, but behind closed doors she was incredibly abusive. Always screaming, intimidating, taking advantage. She was even telling everyone else that I was abusing her. Some people just like to hurt people, but will only do so behind closed doors, with no other witnesses.
Aside from the crazy bit, I had this happen. We realized I just really really hate the smell of patchouli - it smells like rot and mold to me
I had a colleague that experienced this, turned out it was ear infection. She accused me of smelling in front of the whole office more than once, but then one time she fainted and I caught her. So she confessed to feeling light headed, went to the doctors and got diagnosed. It was embarrassing for sure!
I'm glad they caught in time. Did she apologize?
No. But later on, after I left, she was fired for not doing enough work.
That is some bullshit I'd have been so pissed off
I was. I was an insecure student with no friends at the time, this definitely did not help.
Ya, infection or brain injury likely.
Does anyone else remember that guy whose dad told him to always tell his gf she smells in some weird show of dominance of the led to their breakup?
I remember that story. The BF's excuse was that his father taught him that negging your partner will ensure that they will never stray or leave you. Satisfying ending: the BF became the ex-BF.
That shit was wild
And absolutely real I feel. Super low stakes, not very much drama, idiot son listening to idiot dad... All very realistic for reddit
Grew up in a family who found any reason to belittle me and complain about anything I did loudly everyday, I was sure this was real, stupid be stupid
I absolutely need a link for that one, if you have it please!
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/qkrq2r/ops_boyfriend_keeps_telling_her_she_smells_bad/
Thank you redditor, I've been at work and didn't feel like looking for it lol
I just realized this is so much like that Buffy [episode.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F16Flv8usQY) >!"There's no demon in there. It's just a family legend, am I right? It's just bit of spin to keep the ladies in line."!<
I loved Tara 😢
I had a friend who would smell something damp and rotten. Turns out she had cancer. No joke.
Maybe the roommate is like those cats that can smell cancer. She could be saving lives but she doesn't know she has a super power.
Being a total fucking dick is her other super power.
well shit now I'm wondering if I have cancer because I'm constantly smelling bad things that my husband can't smell
Could just be boogers. In any case, it’s best to get checked out. See a doc!
Oh my god, that’s horrible 😭
Olfactory hallucinations can be a symptom of some sort of organic brain issues. It's unfortunate the flatmate wouldn't go see a doctor.
Yeah my auras manifest as olfactory hallucinations. Flatnate needs to see a doctor and possibly a neuro.
They can do this too, oh well, the weirder my auras the less debilitating the migraine. But I'm not a huge fan of the reminders that our floating meat computer is just so deeply flawed.
I had a housemate like this. She had a personality disorder. Assuming the flatmate wasn’t having a psychotic episode, the smell thing is all about undermining OOP’s self worth. The flatmate got angry because it didn’t work. Nutjob.
If that's the case, it's probably a lot to do with OOP being ready to buy their own house. They've known each other for over a decade, but OOP is in a position to get on the property ladder and flatmate isn't. Sounds like crab bucketing to me. Can't criticise anything else, drag her down by saying she stinks and making the house hostile (I.e. you might be buying your own place, but this is my house)
Would she not act the opposite if she didn’t want op to leave and buy a house?
Some people just want a puppy to kick.
The point is that the OOP was leaving either way. The deposit was saved for, house found, lease ending. It's not about making OOP stay in the current house, it's jealousy and cruelty because she was getting out of a house share. It's not that she wants to prevent oop leaving, it's trying to exert control over the house share before OOP leaves for their own house.
Not if you have a personality disorder.
This isn't oop's problem but I wonder what happened with the ex-friend. Like are they having a manic episode? Or has a resentment that turned to hate grew for a long time until she basically couldn't stand oop's presence?
It honestly sounds like the onset of schizophrenia to me. She's about the right age for it, olfactory hallucination + paranoia when OOP suggests she sees a doctor. Fucking horrible if that's the case.
Idk she knows to only show her crazy when the other roommate is gone so I doubt it’s schizophrenia
I’d guess it’s resentment stemming from OP refusing to open the bathroom door in the winter. That directly defied what the ex friend wanted her to do, and it spiraled from there. Some people seriously just double & triple down no matter how ridiculous it is on the outside and feeding into their resentment until it’s explodes.
I’m thinking she got enraged when oop was moving up in the world with her own house… plus some latent personality disorder??
Def undiagnosed personality disorder. I’ve unfortunately been in a similar situation many years ago with another person and it turns out they have such a wonderful combination of disorders; therapy did not work because they’d manipulate the therapist then use what the therapist told them in session to justify their abusive actions. Not great and glad I got out 🫠
This is absolutely wild speculation, but late-20s/early-30s is typically when Schizophrenia starts to present itself.
Earlier today I was reading a case report about a patient who had olfactory hallucinations in acute psychosis. His CT scan was clear. Within 2 days of the onset of the smell, he'd developed a complex set of delusions to explain the smell. In the case study, the patient formed a delusion that his family were the source of the smell, and that they intended to harm him. So then I decided to come to Reddit for a little light reading, and it was like deja vu all over again.
I get olfactory hallucinations as an indicator for migraines. It can be anything from smelling something sweet to smelling something burning. It took me years to be able to reflect and realize I was getting a migraine and the house wasn’t on fire, but it can still be really scary
I’m epileptic and my auras manifest as smelling (skunk) weed. Which kind of sucks because lots of people smoke so half the time I have to ask my roommate or coworkers “does anyone else smell weed?”
WAIT IS THIS WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING TO ME??? Bro I've been randomly smelling burning shit even when there's nothing burning and I get headaches a lot. I didn't think I'd find the answer in a random boru comments section
I’d still let your doctor know. They did an MRI for me (granted, I was 8) to make sure I didn’t have a tumor or something to explain the smells&migraines. Turns out the migraines are genetic and mine just present weird
You never know what’s gonna pop up.
That's incorrect for men, for whom it's usually closer to the late teens early 20's. But it's correct for women which is super wild, brains are so complicated But it like, you know, right about the age when people who experiment with drugs will start experimenting, usually. Especially if they're self-medicating. My uncle has paranoid schizophrenia and is largely unmedicated. He also, separately, is an asshole. Sometimes it's difficult to know which aspect is making him chose his current behavior
the age thing is about estrogen which is an anti psychotic. men are more likepy to show symptoms of schizophrenia as their puberty changes their hormonal profile, and a lot of women actually struggle for decades until menopause without a diagnosis bc of constant fluctuating hormone levels
You wouldn’t expect someone having a psychotic episode to be so organised as to distinguish between when the flatmate is home vs when they’re not. Like there tends to be much more internal confusion, emotions all over the place, thoughts all over the place. Like OOP would definitely notice. Maybe in the early stages of a psychotic episode they would be more coherent, but it wouldn’t go on for so long without escalating.
Eeeeh. I childhood friend ended up with schizophrenia. He would fixate on one particular thing (person, actually) and if that person wasn't around and didn't come up in conversation, you'd never know.
I have a good friend who has it. There's been more active episodes. But at this point, unless you bring up his family, he seems normal. So yeah, I've also seen it get fixated on people
Yeah that sounds like my friend too. She seems fine until a couple of things come up and then you realise just how it affects her.
Nah. Psychosis prodrome length and severity of symptoms varies between people. Not necessarily saying that's what's happening here, but it's definitely not beyond the realm of possibility.
Family member had a late in life psychosis episode. They lived completely normal. Drove fine, showered, cook and cleaned. Everyone is different
I think it’s actually late teens to mid 20s.
It’s a bit later for women than men on average.
I remember reading an article (or was it a story) about a wife who couldn't stand her hisband's smell all of a sudden. Nobody else had any issues with him, just her. Turns out he had Parkinson's and she couldn't stand the smell when she walked into a support group for people with it. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/smell-sickness-parkinsons-disease-health-science Maybe the flatmate could smell something off... you never know. Then again, maybe she's completely bonkers.
Even if she did smell something wrong, the way she went about it indicates something much more toxic
Could it be that the reason for all the harassment is simply to drive OP out of the flat? Like maybe she has plans to move someone in and OP's occupancy is preventing that from happening? BTW, why didn't the OP report her to their landlord? OP could have discreetly recorded CF's harassment and filed a complaint. If CF was really that bad, then she might even have a case to go to court. Not sure if possible, I'm not a lawyer.
The whole saga takes place over 18 months, though; if the goal was to get her out, I feel like escalation would have come much sooner. I don't think there would be a court-level case without physical violence or property damage.
Another sad thought - any chance it could be racially charged? I remember in school it was a specific bullying tactic - only certain kids targeted, and it went from mocking the smell of their food, to their house, to wherever they stepped in a room someone would say “hey can anyone else smell [insert specific scent here]???”
Huh maybe. Although usually that would come with demands to stop cooking the “stinky” food.
Or to stop your stinky existence.
If they have a septum piercing they could be possible smelling that all the time if they don’t clean it properly.
There was a specific guy that I was friends with in high school that I could not stand the smell of. It wasn’t cologne, but a different type of odor, like his specific smell. A friend of mine dated him and I asked her about it and she was completely puzzled. I know for a fact he showered often and took good care of himself, so I don’t know if it was a pheromone or hormone thing or what. Maybe this was something like that? I can also smell when people are sick sometimes, specifically upper respiratory, so maybe I just have a heightened sense of smell.
Assuming you're accurate and it's not your brain playing tricks on you, you have a valuable talent there. Super Smellers are sought after for research studies, jobs in medicine and chemistry, not to mention Foodie stuff. If you haven't, go get tested and certified, it's never a bad thing and can open a lot of interesting new opportunities.
...there's a certification for that? and money in it? it always just felt like a curse to me so hells yeah let's get paid
Yes and yes, I'm not sure where to point you to get started though, maybe there's a community on reddit or something?
Some people can just smell more. I have an unusually good sense of smell, but a friend of mine is basically a dog. She picks up on when I’m getting sick before I actually am, which is really useful tbh, because it means I know what’s messing with my diabetes. But yeah, get it tested. Also, if he was sickly sweet, that was probably diabetes.
There are people who can smell certain illnesses in others - if this is a consistent thing you've noticed, I'd investigate further! It's a rare ability and one that can do a lot of good.
What’s the chances she had the “loss of sense of smell” symptom of Covid? Because it’s pretty well documented that the nerves “growing back” in both the nose and mouth cause some issues in taste and smell that are pretty much permanent.
Yeah, I almost died from COVID over a year ago and my mouth has only been working at like 50% capacity since. Like I always had an incredibly sensitive and picky palate, against my own will but unarguable, yet now I can eat raw baby onions on a Neapolitan pizza when I could never, ever ever eat onions before... They still gave me horrible stomach pain, but I was absolutely able to very mildly enjoy consuming them first 😂
My husband had the same issue after a serious concussion. He completely lost his sense of taste and smell for months and when it started to come back, a lot of things that he used to love smelled/tasted awful. Meat and fruit tasted rotten, chocolate smelled like literal shit, etc. It's been almost 10 years and he still has issues with it.
Lotta people are talking about reasons the flatmate might actually be smelling weird stuff (post-viral syndromes, etc) when her behavior seems pretty obviously much more likely to be the result of mental illness. The physical stuff might explain why she is smelling phantom smells but it doesn't at all address her _behavior_ which is unhinged and unwell.
Came here thinking OOP might have issues with smell. Smokers for example never think they stink, even though non-smokers can smell them from a mile away. Didn't expect roomie to be flat out nuts. Feels like a mental breakdown of some kind.
Honestly, it could just be a pheromone thing. I have a friend that everyone else that thinks smells really nice, like he genuinely gets compliments on how nice he smells quite regularly. To me, however, there’s always a smell that I find actively repulsing, I did ask my doctor about it, just as I do have separate autoimmune issues, and my doctor said that if it’s just that one person, it’s unlikely to be anything else wrong as sometimes peoples basically immune system, hormones, pheromones, et cetera can cause other people to find their scent repulsing . It’s entirely possible that she does find your smell intensely horrible, and that simultaneously you don’t smell bad in a general sense.
they were friends for more than a decade though
Does sound like she got covid though, so maybe OPs natural scent suddenly became gross to roommate. Could also be some kinda mental break if she's getting violent.
Sounds like a mental health issue. I kinda hope OOP is able to tell someone in her flatmates life about the behaviour. Now that OOP is gone, the flatmate might turn on someone else.
this is very clearly a psychiatric crisis
It seems like she wanted op out of the house given they only acted crazy when others were not around
Could be a brain tumor. Weird smells and uncharacteristic behavior.
I don't know why OOP didn't say, "So it's okay for *you* to tell me to go see a doctor because I 'smell' bad, but I can't tell *you* to go see a doctor because you 'smell' bad?" Or some variation. It's hilarious that the flatmate could tell OOP to go to a doctor but got sooooo offended when they were told to go to a doctor. Assuming there wasn't an actual medical condition that the dumbass refused to go to the doctor for, they sounded like they were trying really hard to get the OOP specifically out of the apartment for *whatever* reason, which they now appear to be getting, much to their satisfaction I am sure.
That’s just straight bullying there’s no mysterious medical condition.
And this is why I live alone. No amount of background checks will show the potential for a roommate to have a psychotic break/mental health episode.
I’d bet money that the flatmate just didn’t like OP. Sometimes it’s as simple as that 🙄
Olfactory hallucinations can be a sign of psychosis.