Midwest Memo
What's that smell?
by Alan Shultz

For the summer this year we've got a little humble abode down near the lake to use. Out the front door and just past the crowded, noisy parking lot lies a beautiful sandy beach - and, get this, a hot dog stand. What a deal!

We had some family and guests over to visit on Memorial Day. The place is not furnished - not a stick yet. That remains our job. So that afternoon we wound up in a ragged circle in front of the living room picture window sitting on patio furniture leftover from a former owner. A few folding beach chairs we picked up on sale at the garden center finished out the seating arrangement.

I'm usually the one to detect a "smell" that needs identifying. But that wasn't the case this time around.

"Do you smell something?" my wife asked.

"Yes, what is that, "replied an in-law to the right."

And we were off and running.

Me and those on my side of the circle smelled nothing, but those on my wife's side of the circle all detected the odor.

I opened a window. Then, thinking the smell was coming from the outside, someone else closed the window.

I turned on the air conditioning.

Then I went around smelling air ducts.

The ancient stove in the kitchen with lurking pilot lights was suspect. We gave it the once over.

On to the hot water heater we headed. Noses were pointed into the air.

The smell grew in intensity. The smell kept getting worse. It hung in the air like the diesel fuel that hovers over the water after a boat has idled. We looked accusingly at the boats bobbing on the lake a block away. Outside again I went. This time I circled around a dump truck parked on the parking lot next door - sniffing and sniffing for the source of the smell.

The smell was making folks uneasy. I was not the only one getting a headache.

Finally, the guests made a quick exit for other activities, figuring it wasn't a great idea to sit and inhale whatever it was building in the air inside.

We invited our neighbors in for a fresh opinion. No, they didn't have that smell in their place but, yes, it smelled like diesel fuel in ours. The smell was decidedly limited to the living room. It wasn't outside; it wasn't in any of the other rooms.

"What's in the crawl space?" I forget who posed that question.

All kinds of unpleasant possibilities came to mind.

I put on grubby clothes and

pulled the hatch open to go exploring. A flashlight was located after much commotion. Visions of an old fuel tank and a visit from the EPA came to me as I lowered myself into unchartered territory. For a moment I saw crime scene tape wrapped around the property, then a condemned sign appeared in my vision. I lowered myself into the cobwebs and musty dark air that is uniquely crawl space territory.

My wife interrupted my racing imagination with what they describe in the courtroom as an excited utterance. "I've got it," she exclaimed!

It was the bargain, $3.98 a piece, vinyl beach chairs that were fouling the air with an incredible diesel fuel smell. You could actually "taste" the smell in the air. The process is called "off-gassing" and petroleum based products often undergo this unpleasant phenomenon.

Out the back door went the chairs, open went the windows, and we headed to the beach in the direction of a much more pleasant smell - that of hot dogs.