Please tell me what is this smell?

[rnln]

Have you ever live close by, or driven by the metal melting manufacture? When you do, do you notice the kind of smell?
There was a junk metal melting place in Fullerton, CA (I think) near freeway 91. For years, whenever driven by there, I always notice the unpleasant type of smell. I can't tell what it is producing that smell and what to call it, so I keep calling it the "acid smell". Does anyone know what I am talking about?
For several times, I felf that smell in my garage, and I thought maybe the skunk. Today, I think I felf that smell in my family room. .
We were running around to see where it's smelled the strongest, but we couldn't identify anything before it's gone away.

[Rick V]

It would help to identify the problem if we had scratch and sniff monitors.
You knew someone was going to go there.

[slodave]

Felf??

As for the skunk... Sure there isn't a grow op nearby?

[Joe Bob]

Since you are in CA, contact the local AQMD, read thier permit to operate, conditions and the engineering report. They may also have mandantory source testing....it will tell you what they are emitting.

[recycled sixtie]

When I was a child I had a tortoise on a string. There was a strange smell and I followed the string and attached to it was a dead tortoise. Has your wife gone missing lately?LOL

[daepp]

At the intersection of the 91 and the 57 there is a garbage sorting facility - are you sure it's not that you're smelling?

[targa911S]

It's all those Fender guitars.

[sammyg2]

The metal recycling facility on Frontera used to be a pick-a-part but the tree-huggers killed it. it was the cleanest pick-a-part in so Cal, but because it was near the santa ana riverbed the enviro-geeks made em close it down. Thanks.
I found all kinds of treasures in there over the years, usually 914 parts.
It is technically in Anaheim but I live south of there in Orange.
I haven't noticed any smells from it and I drive by daily.


As previously mentioned there is a garbage sorting/recycling facility on blue gum and La Palma right at the 91 and 57. That place stinks bad depending on the wind direction and temperature.
I smell it when the Santa Ana's are blowing from the north and the smell drifts accross the 91.
The smell can be described as rotting eucalyptus trees mixed with trash.

What direction are you from that trash sorting/recycling plant?

[stomachmonkey]

Last house I owned was originally a 1 story summer cottage.

It was knocked down to the foundation which was just crawlspace, a new foundation was built around the old one to increase the sq footage.

One winter we would get this occasional whiff of something foul.

Made us crazy. I'm giving the dog baths, turning over furniture looking for cat crap etc...

But since the smell would come and go it was hard to pin down the source.

Right around Easter my MIL comes over, she walks into the house and says "what's that smell? smells like something died"

I think Bingo!! Something got into the crawl space over the winter, died and on warm days we can smell it.

The only way to access the crawl space is thru a 2 foot wide access panel in my back office closet.

I clean out the closet, pop the panel and whoaboy, smell is definitely coming from down there.

I drop into the extended new crawlspace which is so low that you need to lay flat on your stomach and use your elbows to drag yourself around.

I check out every square inch of the new foundation and find nothing. So I make my way to the old foundation, the holes for the foundation vent windows stil exist and I'm just about to crawl thru when I hear "drip/splash".

Drip? What's dripping?

I shine my flashlight into the space and the first thing I see is the main sewage line that leaves the house cracked in half.

600 sq feet 3 inches deep of frozen raw sewage.

I scream SHIIITTT!

My wife yells back, "What is it?"

SHIIITTT!

"What?"

It's SHIIITT!!!

During the house reconstruction a lot of excess debris, lumber insulation, pvc, ended up being left in the space since it was really not usable.

Took 2 weeks and $10,000 to clean up.

The hazmat crew spent a week on their stomachs scooping debris into 5 gallon buckets and bringing it all out thru the only access, the 2 foot wide panel in the closet.

What a mess.

[rnln]

Dave, Sammy,

It's west of where Sammy mentionoed. It's near harbor and state college area, whatever street Lowes is on, and it is a little south of Lowes. When you go south, it's on a small street on the left. For almost 30 years I have been smelling it on and off in the evening when I drove by. Once, 20 or so years ago I was looking for direction and ended up at that facility. It was when I think I know where the smell comming from, but there were also several other manufacture building in that area. It was type of a metal recycle place, they melt the metal, not a collection area. I used to smell it when driving on 91 almost every evening, years ago, not so often now.

No, it's not smell of the dead corp. It's not sewage for sure. It's more similar to the skunk's spray, and again, I am not sure if it is. Think about it a little more, it can't be skunk's spray, because there are more than once I could smell it strong in the garage but not outside.

It comes and goes. When there are someone there so I can ask, of course it's hind away :lol:. I think, but not so sure, it's a little stronger in the corner of the garage where the water heaters are. I have 2, 1 is gas and 1 is solar. When I come too close, I can't tell where exactly it's comming from.

[sammyg2]

ok, I was thinking of a different place.
I know the place you're talking about but haven't noticed any unusual odor.

Now you've got me wondering if they have a battery recycling plant there.

[vash]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Last house I owned was originally a 1 story summer cottage.

It was knocked down to the foundation which was just crawlspace, a new foundation was built around the old one to increase the sq footage.

One winter we would get this occasional whiff of something foul.

Made us crazy. I'm giving the dog baths, turning over furniture looking for cat crap etc...

But since the smell would come and go it was hard to pin down the source.

Right around Easter my MIL comes over, she walks into the house and says "what's that smell? smells like something died"

I think Bingo!! Something got into the crawl space over the winter, died and on warm days we can smell it.

The only way to access the crawl space is thru a 2 foot wide access panel in my back office closet.

I clean out the closet, pop the panel and whoaboy, smell is definitely coming from down there.

I drop into the extended new crawlspace which is so low that you need to lay flat on your stomach and use your elbows to drag yourself around.

I check out every square inch of the new foundation and find nothing. So I make my way to the old foundation, the holes for the foundation vent windows stil exist and I'm just about to crawl thru when I hear "drip/splash".

Drip? What's dripping?

I shine my flashlight into the space and the first thing I see is the main sewage line that leaves the house cracked in half.

600 sq feet 3 inches deep of frozen raw sewage.

I scream SHIIITTT!

My wife yells back, "What is it?"

SHIIITTT!

"What?"

It's SHIIITT!!!

During the house reconstruction a lot of excess debris, lumber insulation, pvc, ended up being left in the space since it was really not usable.

Took 2 weeks and $10,000 to clean up.

The hazmat crew spent a week on their stomachs scooping debris into 5 gallon buckets and bringing it all out thru the only access, the 2 foot wide panel in the closet.

What a mess.

OMG!! i call these "renter" moments. moments you wish you were a renter.

[rnln]

You popped the "battery" in my mind for a minute since I just bought the charger and been playing with my kid's toy batteries, but it can't be. battery should smell like sewage (past experience on over charged regulator), and I start experience this smell before I bought the charger.

Originally Posted by sammyg2

ok, I was thinking of a different place.
I know the place you're talking about but haven't noticed any unusual odor.

Now you've got me wondering if they have a battery recycling plant there.

[sammyg2]

I checked the satellite view of that area just south of the 91 around anaheim blvd, I don't see any buildings with big stacks I that would think would be necessary for a metal-melting furnace.


But, there is a manufacturing plant on north Patt st that looks like it could be a food processing plant of some sort, it has a bunch of vertical vessels. It could be a vegitable oil rendering plant or similar, definately not an animal rendering plant.
Once you've driven down Bandini blvd in Vernon you'll never forget the smell of an animal rendering plant.

I see the construction place with the giant dirt mound that's visible from the freeway but dirt don't stink.

Hay, what about that red brick building with the electronic clock and temp reading? that's a food manufacturing plant of some sort but I thought it was a bakery or something.



Wait ....... I think I got it! I used (the evil internet search engine that shall not be named) Earth.


That place with all the vertical vessels?
I bet that's it:

Stepan Company
1208 N Patt St
Anaheim CA 92801

Phone: 714-776-9870

Company Profile For Stepan Company:

Category: Medical Equipment & Supplies
Sub Category: Medical Equipment & Supplies

Stepan Company is associated with following industry(s): Medicinal Chemicals & Botanical - Medicinal Chemicals & Botanical, Industrial Organic Chemicals - Industrial Organic Chemicals, Chemicals And Allied Products - Chemicals And Allied Products. Additional products and services include: Medical Equipment & Supplies, Chemicals & Gases, Chemicals Wholesale & Manufacturers, Chemicals, Chemicals Industrial

Aren't the inter-webs wunderful?

[rnln]

I just googled it and don't see it there anymore. It used to be on Anaheim blvd and 91, right on the SE corner. I have not been in that area for at least 20 years or so, looks like it's completely changed.

Wow, that stepan lot looks scary. Maybe that's it.

Back to my smell, I suspect the water heaters the most. For the smell on 91, I thought it was the melting/burning metal. Well, water heater got fire under it constainly for years.

[tabs]

Are you sure you are not DOWNWIND of Hughs place...with Dopeso living in the backyard and the Skunk getting pregnant and all.

[rnln]

I do have skunk and other wild animals come in once in a while (not much an more since I've been trying to chase them away), but smell this in my garage the most. When it happen, I checked and either smell very slightly or don't smell it on the outside at all. Unless, the slunk comes and spray from the outside through the vents into my garage right at the corner which I have the water heaters fom time to time, which I doubt that can happen.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by tabs

Are you sure you are not DOWNWIND of Hughs place...with Dopeso living in the backyard and the Skunk getting pregnant and all.

No no no.
dip is nearly 30 miles away in Long Beach and although that place has a very distinctive odor, it rarely drifts past the orange curtain.

Hugh lives a loooong ways away in the opposite direction.
Prolly 80 miles or so up in beautiful God's country, at least when it ain't fire season (knocking on wood for Hugh's sake).

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by tabs

Are you sure you are not DOWNWIND of Hughs place...with Dopeso living in the backyard and the Skunk getting pregnant and all.

the smell is more likely to be that big dinosaur coprolite on the back end of hugh's pool

[scottmandue]

Have you checked you gas line?

I occasional would get a mild wiff of natural gas...

Crawled under the house and sniffed around and nothing...

Finally ended up crawling around the yard sniffing at the ground like a blood hound.

Started digging... smell got stronger... found the old galvanized gas line had rusted and a pin hole leak.