Good hygiene is something we're all aware and insecure about. Like how when we smell onions, we sniff our own armpits. It happens. Maintaining good hygiene is essential to not only our own well-being but also of those around us. Especially in today's society, basic hygiene is necessary to prevent the spread of diseases. We understand that not everyone has access to or the means necessities to meet basic hygiene needs, but these Reddit users have shared the times they've encountered people who have completely disregarded their personal hygiene.
It Wasn’t Him
“When I worked at a lingerie store, one of my first nights when i was still being supervised, a couple came in. The man was scraggly, and a bit dirty looking, and the woman looked very clean. But there was a smell. A fishy smell, and my boss and I both assumed it was coming from the man, so we let the woman try on a couple sets of lingerie. Oh we were wrong. We were so wrong. We had to air out the dressing room and steam clean the lingerie. It was awful.”
Quite The Wake Up Call
“I dated a hippy. Now, he showered every day, but never used soap or shampoo because of ‘chemicals’.
We were intimate a couple times and, yeah, he was a bit whiffy, but nothing too grotesque. I’m into perfumery so also have a ‘thing’ for the smells of humans. I was cool with it.
One day he wanted me to rim him. My mind immediately went to the fact that he never used soap, so his bum was probably in, well, pretty cruddy shape.
I sensually suggested we take intimate time to the shower. I sexily got the shower gel and made a big deal of soaping him up top to bottom, finishing on his nether regions.
The water ran brown. It ran brown from years of built up crud. I watched as the densely poopy soap water went down the drain and realized I could do better in life…
…or at least stop dating hippies.”
His Breath Could Gag A Maggot
“I worked at an engine assembly plant in NY state where everyone is in these 3-5 station teams that rotate every hour so you don’t go crazy doing the same job for 8+ hours. We had this dude who came to our group who had the nastiest teeth I’ve ever seen in my life. His bottom front teeth were all fused together into one big, lower tusk. And his breath could gag a maggot. It got so difficult to work with the guy (you could smell his breath from at least 6 feet away) that we had to go to a manager to figure out how to handle it and not be rude. Well they basically told him he needed to do something about it, so he constantly had a tub of mints on him. After that, his breath just smelled like a rotting corpse AND mint. So, yay…”
Her Shirt Changed Colors
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“Woman was a heavy, heavy smoker. Which can cause a lot of issues in itself. And bad BO like she never showered, and the list goes on and on…
But the worst thing was this nasty brown blouse she had that she wore all the time. I mean like, 4 days a week at least, but she did wear other things occasionally because they always jumped out.
Thing is, there was a picture on her desk wearing that blouse from like 5, 6, whatever years before, and it was white in that picture!
I just thought it was coincidence and no way it was the same one till one of her coworkers who shared the office with her started going on about her one day when she was gone, and the woman confirmed it was the same shirt, and she had slowly watched it change from white to whatever disgusting it currently was over the years.”
A Cute Lil Piggy
“After a night at the bar, I went home with this cute guy who outwardly seemed pretty normal and attractive. Got to his place and it was filled with garbage… like a layer of garbage spread on the floor. I had a few drinks in me so I was like okay he’s cute, this is gross but let’s see how it goes. Takes me to his bedroom and there’s literally disgusting old food and garbage in the bed and in the sheets, like not just containers, expired disgusting open food directly on the bed and LOTS of it. It was so revolting I started thinking excuses to leave.
This guy was cute though so I stuck around another 5-10 thinking how we can work this out. We sat on the bed and literally under the sheets were filled with garbage too. He proceeds to take of his socks for whatever reason and his toenails are completely black under the nails/long/his feet are so dirty like they hadn’t been washed ever. I gagged a little before bolting out of there saying I didn’t feel well which I didn’t. Honestly I was young and willing to put up with a lot but it was a no-go.”
Total Neglect
“I work in an ER in a low income area, there was one that I’ll never forget. She was a mid 40s obese hoarder who had decided it wasn’t worth the effort to get out of her recliner for two weeks straight; she had a fridge within reach so she wasn’t hungry but was producing feces and urine the entire time without getting up to use the restroom or to clean herself. You could smell her down the hall with the door closed and her behind was literally rotting away with pressure sores down to her bones.”
A Low Tide Brings In An Odd Stench
“I used to work retail and one day we had this woman come into the store who had not showered in months. She stunk the whole store up from just walking around. We had to ask her to leave due to hygiene.
I will never forget that stench. It was like low tide and a dead body had been sitting around for a month.”
Roommate Nightmares
“I lived in a triple dorm when I was a sophomore in college. Two friends and me.
When my friend transferred to a different school over Christmas break, the college automatically added in a third person as our dorm had the only opening on campus.
The girl was a year younger than us, not a huge deal. But the problem developed a few days after she moved in with us. There was a slight odor when she walked by. The odor grew day by day. We began to realize that she wasn’t showering. We had an ensuite bathroom and we would hear the water turn on in the shower for about 5 minutes, but she never came out with wet hair or looking any different than when she went in.
We went for a soft approach at first. We went to Bath And Body Works and got her a really nice basket of scented soaps and shampoos and conditioners, because she only had one very old generic shampoo that she’d had in the shower. She was very grateful and we thought that would be the end of it.
She put the shower items in the shower, and literally nothing else changed. The levels on the soaps and shampoo didn’t go down. The smell was getting worse.
We sat down with her and had a serious but concerned conversation. We said that we were worried about her and wanted to know if she was okay and how we could help. She said everything was fine and nobody else had ever mentioned her smelling bad. I find that completely impossible as she was surrounded by a stench of body odor coming from every pore. She said she’d shower more.
She began going to parties, which we thought would make her clean up a bit, but it didn’t. She would just add cheap drinks to the body odor scent.
After about a month, my roommate and I went to the dorm advisor and explained what the situation was and how we were done. She was smelling worse every day and was beginning to be very snotty to us.
The residence director met with her and although he couldn’t tell us what happened during the meeting, he verified that he could smell the odor coming off of her.
Thankfully, she had made a friend (a very odd duck but a duck that I am still thankful for) and that friend’s roommate moved out. She moved within a week. We ran into her on campus every now and then. Same stink.”
Truly A Stink Beast
“A guy we called the stink beast. I was a rent to own delivery guy right out of college. We had a regular customer that smelled like a sock stuffed with boiled cabbage and soaked in diarrhea, all the time. He also only wore tank tops. I went to his nasty house to pick up a stereo he couldn’t pay for. I spent twenty minutes in his house unhooking wires etc. There was dog poop ON THE COUCH, next to me in more than one spot. And I mean actual turds, not a smear of something. I rolled the stereo out on a dolly through several more piles of poop and loaded the stereo into the van. As I’m ready to close the door, he runs out with a wad of cash and wants me to put it back. While I’m writing up a new ticket, he leans in to adjust something on the stereo. His sweaty, hairy, pit jams right into my face. It was like getting hit in the face with a used diaper. I immediately whirled around and puked in his yard. While I’m trying to be nice and pretend I’m getting the flu, his dog proceeds to come over and eat my puke. So yeah, this guy!
Bonus to the story – Two years or so after thus happened I saw the stink beast at an Old Country Buffet. I told my wife that he was there. And her reply was that he must be the guy in the blue tank top. She said she could smell him from the opposite side of the steam table. Said people were sniffing the steamer like something had spoiled.”
One Maggoty Hairstyle
“This guy and his family didn’t like to shower, and they all had food stains all over their clothing, and the father smelled like he pooped himself, smelled like pee, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is he had food stuck in his hair and maggots crawling in it. Literally the guy smelled like death. He said I was being offensive because I stood 10 feet away from him.
Guy had the nerve to call my manager over who then immediately stuck his hand up and said he wasn’t interested in hearing his story that he needed to leave and not come back until he took a shower.
After this is when he started taking care of himself.”
This Mix Up Really Socks
“I have one and only one instance of insane hygiene. When I was in college they got some dorm assignments messed up. I played baseball and thus I was in the athletic dorm. For some reason rather than assigning another ball player to my room they assigned some random guy. This initially was no problem for me. I was not a stereotypical jock and had many friends who were not athletes. The first day was ok. Turned out he worked at Dominos Pizza and would bring home four or five pizzas after work. So he shows up with some pizza and says I can have all I want. I’m thinking this might be cool. Free pizza everyday. Alas, things quickly took a turn. The first and second nights i noticed just a hint of that “dirty feet smell”. Dude didn’t take his shoes off either night so I was like “where is this coming from”. But really it was not that noticeable. Just the occasional whiff as I said.
The third night. OMG. I walked in from baseball practice late and he was already there playing his xbox (he had the latest versions of PS and XBOX and tons of games…I mention this so that it’s clear that poverty is not to blame for this situation)
Anyway, I walked into the room and smelled a smell that I have never smelled before or since. A smell beyond description. He had simply taken off his shoes. His socks were BLACK. They were supposed to be white. God knows the last time he had changed them. I stepped back outside to keep from gagging. For the next month until they straightened out the dorm situation I was only in my room for sleep. Nothing else. The only way I could sleep was to spray my pillow with cologne or something and bury my face in it. The smell hung in the air after that. Even when he wasn’t there. When my friends would come by to get me to go out they would walk in and immediate turn and leave and give me what the heck look.
During my month living with my new friend (who To my knowledge never actually attended a class) I NEVER saw him shower. I saw him in two sets of clothes during that month: his pizza uniform and a T shirt and gym shorts ensemble completed by his soiled socks.
After he was relocated I never saw him again. And I pray that whoever was his new roommate was born without a sense of smell.”
Wash. Your. Hands.
“So, I used to work at this really upscale vegan hot-pot restaurant a few years ago. The owner/manager was very adamant on how it’s ‘ok not to wash your hands because in my country, washing hands meant you’re cleaning off the hard work you’ve done.’ She was the only person who would, even after using the bathroom, we knew she wouldn’t wash her hands, she’d use gloves yes since she’d handle food sometimes, but even then, still wash your freaking hands.
Also, my ex told me he didn’t think it was necessary to wash his member because ‘it just washes itself when the shampoo runs down his body in the shower’.”
Girl….What Is You Doing?
“I work in medical so I’ve seen a lot. But, one of my good friends who’s a high level marketing person at a University and has a Master’s Degree asked me how often I cleaned my house? I found out she showers once every 10 days, has numerous skin infections, wipes off kitchen counters maybe once a month once things mold, etc. But the worst part was when she told me she never changes/washes her sheets. She had them on her bed for 2 years and never took them off until she threw them away because she bought new ones.”
Someone Please Tell Them You Notice…
“We had two regulars that used to come into our bar. In their later years of life, but enjoyed the atmosphere and loved chatting up anyone who would listen.
Things started going south a few years back when we started getting some complaints that they would sometimes smell like urine. Then it dawned on me – I hadn’t seen either of them get up and go to a washroom. Eventually we came to find out that instead of acting like normal members of society, they would come in, drink for a few hours, and just casually pee themselves while wearing diapers and not think anyone would notice.”
Literally Crawling With Lice
“Girl I was friends with at university had been complaining of an itchy head for a couple of weeks. We all joked it could have been headlice but none of us had any contact with children. Anyway, this girl was known for her lack of showering, we worked in the same restaurant together and she’d frequently finish a shift, sleep in her uniform and go back the next day without even a pat down with a wet wipe just to put it in context.
One day in a lecture she scratched her head and a huge louse came out and walked across her paper. It was shocking honestly. Later that day she’s got delicing shampoo and a comb. I swear to god each time she pulled the comb out of her hair you couldn’t even see the teeth. It was just alive and moving with lice.
Still one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. I mean her head was literally crawling with lice.”
This Poor Old Woman…
“This poor elderly woman had been found down and admitted directly to my ICU. Turned out she had been having “diarrhea” for the past 4-5 months, which led to dehydration and a fall (orthostatic hypotension).
Physical examination showed she had a massive fungating and obstructing rectal cancer, so technically she couldn’t poop, but she had developed a fistula through the cancer through which she “diarrhea’d” every day. Far and away one of the most abhorrent images I have in my mind from surgical internship.
She knew she couldn’t care for herself, but assumed/thought someone would check on her. No one did, and she became too weak to call for help. Luckily the mailman realized the mail piling up and called the police. The saddest part was that she was really hurt by the fact that none of her neighbors checked on her.
Luckily she had no metastases despite the horrific local invasion, and after surgery she did well. Social services got involved and I’m hoping she’s in a better place.”