Stinker

Have you ever had to tell anyone that they smelled? Or worse still, been on the receiving end of a kindly/humiliating or cruel/humiliating comment on your personal hygiene?

I'm fairly confident that I would have been a moderately malodorous teenager, as my convent school operated a particularly neurotic policy towards the gym shower block, namely that it was out of bounds to all but the Sixth Form (who presumably were deemed mature and sensible enough to take post-gym showers without danger of spontaneous Sapphic orgies, whereas the rest of us, much as we might reek to high heaven after a cross-country run on a warm September day, could not be trusted with the fatal combination of hot water, soap and mass nudity.). Presumably we all smelt as terrible as each other, so the impact of our individual stench was lost in the mass fug, but by Sixth Form college we could all shower as often as we liked, so that smelly bodies stood out, and were unkindly hunted down. I cringe as I remember an unfortunate girl called Roxana, who had a terrible problem and would be followed down the corridors by packs of girls screeching "Roxana...you don't have to put on the Right Guard...". I suspect her problem was more to do with her diet, and having terrifying parents who belonged to a peculiar religious sect which banned the use of cosmetics (presumably including soap.).

At University, some of the girls in my Hall of Residence were given shared rooms - a terrible idea at the best of times and a catastrophic idea when one of you is new to the concept of feminine hygiene. A girl on my floor drew a particularly short straw with a room mate who owned two outfits, which were alternated and hung back in the wardrobe "to air' between wears, and both of which involved tights worn under jeans. By week four the situation had become intolerable and we all gaped in shocked admiration as the suffering party confronted her fetid chum with the (quickly immortalised) words: "I'm going to the Woolco. Shall I get you some deodorant?" "Yes please," replied the fusty lass, apparently without surprise or rancour. It may well have been a turning point in her life - two weeks later she got her first snog, so it was definitely win-win.

I've had a few clients who have left me with the problem of having to explain to the person after them that the stench in the room is actually a leftover from the previous occupant and not me - this has not happened often as I keep a supply of a very good French room spray, and can usually open the window for ten minutes between clients, but there have been one or two whose personal musk has hung around like an invisible cloak for hours afterwards. And I have had one colleague who knew he smelled dreadful and would freely acknowledge it, but blame it on his weight problem which he swore was 'glandular' (and therefore rendered his armpits immune to the effects of soap, apparently.).

My current olfactory dilemma involves my mother-in-law, a lady whose own sons will freely acknowledge as historically 'casual' in her attitude to personal and domestic cleanliness. When she got a couple of hairy dogs who remain 'lovably' untrained ("They've got strong personalities and that's how I like them" is the standard response, as her pets ritually mount all visitors and bay Pedigree Chum Breath into their faces), I knew neither mutt would ever see the inside of a bath, and years down the line the house has developed a Quatermass-like coating of pulsating, organic matter composed mainly of a dog-hair base emulsified with canine spit. If you enter the house, it will attach itself to you by stealth, and by the time you leave you will have miraculously 'grown' a whole new layer of skin and clothes covering, which you will have to peel or gouge off once safely home. And it's best to refuse any offers of food, unless you like it seasoned with a chewy topping of matted fur, saliva and Pal. Heston Blumenthal would be proud, and what's more the special aroma will follow you around for days.

And now she's preparing to put her home on the market and move to a smaller property. Which is going to mean viewings, and more worryingly, smellings. While the house I live in now was a bit of a wreck when we moved in, and smelled musky and unloved, I knew it would be freshened in the course of decorating and airing it, but with M-in-L's house, the odour is embedded in every fibre of carpet and every inch of soft furnishing. Only the noseless could fail to be affected by the stink, and as modern antibiotics have proved quite useful in preventing nose-rot, most prospective buyers will, it must be assumed, be in possession of functioning olfactory systems.

It fell to the eldest son to 'have a word' (the youngest one having promised 'to back you up' and then having hightailed it into the garden at the critical moment.). "It might be a good idea," Eldest Son ventured, "to get the carpets cleaned before you put the house on the market."
 "Oh, I don't think so. That just seems like a waste of money to me."
 "Well... the thing is...the house does smell a bit doggy."
 "Well it would, I've got the dogs."
 "Well yes. But not everyone likes dogs, and some people might notice the smell if they're not used to them."
 (slightly plaintive sounding) "But they're lovely dogs. And they don't really smell. I can't smell them."
 "No, but you're used to being around them..."
 (steely tone appears) "I'll buy a Glade air-freshener, then. You can get ones that plug in. If you're going to make a thing of it." (folds arms)
 (resignedly) "Ok then. That should take care of it."

Didn't she get off lightly, compared with poor Roxana?