Stinky customers

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

I've had several run-ins with stinky customers.
When I worked for a certain "all items a dollar" chain, there was a family of walking stinkbombs who came in a few times. I'm talking BO for YEARS after they left. My manager emptied a can of air freshener each time they left out of the store.
Another customer (same store) came in one morning and walked past one of the cashiers. The cashier got this look on her face I won't easily forget. After the lady left, the cashier told me that the woman smelled like she had just rolled in poo and BOY was it rank. I took her word for it.

More recently, a 'gentleman' came into my store and tried to haggle over the price of a bottle of cologne, telling me that I can mark it down for him if I wanted to. Uh, yeah, and lose my job, too, thank you very not. The whole time he's standing there bugging me, I'm slowly sufficating from his pronounced stink. I wanted to tell him that cologne wasn't the answer; deodorant was.

[purplecat41877]

There's this guy who does lottery who smells bad. I can tell that the smell is really bad since I have a bad nose and can't smell things unless they're strong-scented or I put my nose close to it.

[Enjis]

And then there are the young men who visit the cologne counter at my place, and douse themselves from head to toe with the stuff. The ladies who work that counter say that usually it's the men who just come from the gym, and don't bother taking showers.
So, it's cool to cover up the BO with a bucket of cologne!!
Urgh....I'm glad my fiance does not wear cologne...I can't stand it.
Sometimes, it's so bad, I can follow a customer around by following the trail left in the air...seriously! And I don't have a very good sense of smell either!

[Lehk]

I can follow a customer around by following the trail left in the air...seriously! And I don't have a very good sense of smell either!

one of my cow-orkers i can identify as being at work without seeing her she wears so much perfume and always the same one (i don't know what it's called)

i'll walk into the back room and think "Hmm, F must be working today"

don't see her much anymore i think she pissed off everyone in the department by being lazy and annoying.

[Kiwi]

my first customer, ever.

she was a huge beast wearing a red moo moo (im not kidding) her skin was dry and scaley and she smelt like urine.... layers of dried old urine

underneath her long yellow fingernails was black gunk, she was the most disgusting person I have ever laid eyes on... and she was my first customer (nasty cow to) lucky my trainer was still there... eyes bugging out of his head

should have taken it as an omen and run!

[Hotelboy]

My worst was waaay back when I used to work housekeeping. Went up to clean a check-out room on a sunday morning, 15 minutes past check-out time. *Knock knock*, they were still there. Front desk finally got them out by 2 o'clock. When I opened the door, all the way down the hall. Now not only do I have to clean 'my' mess, I still have to find out whats making that stench.

Apparently the previous occupants was/were hooker(s) (I speculate cause it couldn't have been just one). I wrapped a deoderizer sprayed towel around my face and searched for the source of the stench. OH MY GOD!

Bathroom garbage can..... half full.... of used CONDOMS!

How? Just how in the hell do you go through that many? Were they lined up all night?

I checked with front desk (while telling them we're putting the room off market and hiring pro's to clean it). These people checked in at 11:30pm. They were only awake for 12 hours max. Using some approximate math... about 150 condoms in that can = about 12.5 an hour? EEEWWWWW

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Spraying with cologne does not help mask the stench of funk. It makes it worse. I had to work with a guy for the last five years or so who was the nastiest, funkiest, unwashed creature I've ever met (and I don't mind talking trash about him, either, because the guy's smell matched his personality. What a creep.). I had to share a crew office with this guy. He wore cheap cologne, and since he was always unwashed and stinky, the combo of smells would knock you down. I'd rather just smell the BO, frankly. I can live with BO without retching.

He came to work crusted with dirt, too, but that's another story for another time.

Once I was the stinky customer. While working for public television, I worked on the crew for a show called NatureScene. It's a show where a naturalist and a host walk around a place, checking out the local flora and fauna. Great show to work on, had a blast. It was boiling hot, we were in Mexico Beach, covered in sweat and dirt. We filled the van with dead things we'd found to photograph and study...dead sea urchins, scales from porcupine fish, skate vertebrae, etc. The van smelled like the dumpster behind a seafood joint in August. And we had to stop by a CVS to pick up more bug repellant. We smelled like BO, rot, fish, all fermented down to a sickening, ripe funk.

I was glad I was in a town where no one knew me.

[Carolinagirl]

I hate it when women come to my dept, and I swear that they are wearing their whole bottle of perfume.... my God, do they not know that just a squirt or 2 will be okay.... mostly they are older women.... I have to hold my breath with some of them..... one time my eyes started watering, and I started sneezing..... this lady looked at me and asked me if I was catching a cold, I replied.... no maam, it is your perfume.... she stormed off in a huff.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

The worst I've ever had to deal with was at least not a nausating odor, but I did run afoul of the Original AquaVelva Man.

I don't mean someone who wears it, but someone whom I'm certain is either marinated it for several weeks, or has it running through thier veins.

I could actually smell him BEFORE he came into the store and the stink of the aftershave would linger for a bloody week.

Thank Goddess he only came in three or four times a year.

Mongo

[Lace Neil Singer]

The worst I've ever had to deal with was at least not a nausating odor, but I did run afoul of the Original AquaVelva Man.

Quagmire: Hey there spud in the mud.
Stewie: Oh god do you bathe in Aqua Velva?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I was doing a "store sweep" (where we took the gigantic broom and swept up and down every aisle in the grocery store and all over every department) one Sunday......you can see where this is going...

About the time when the church crowds started taking over the grocery store....

I'm sweeping behind this old couple in the chip/soda aisle. I must have been really quiet, because they had no clue I was around, and the lady lifted up her leg and ripped a fart that sounded almost like a trumpet solo..........

I immediately covered my mouth and froze in place. I thought I was going to have a seizure because I couldn't stop myself from shaking and wanting to laugh, but I had to keep quiet (and "invisible") until they went to the next aisle.

Aaagh! That's nasty!

If I feel one coming on, I try to get away from everybody else and let it go as quietly as possible. I don't just lift my leg and blast one.

I'm not the type to fart in public on purpose, but sometimes it can't be avoided.

[South Texan]

Finally he says, "I think there's a skunk under my deck."

He continues with, "I don't think I'll be able to get this smell out, either. I've tried everything!"

Off topic, but whenever this should happen, the way I've found to remove the smell (or at least a vast majority of it) is to immerse the "victim" to the limit possible without drowning for at least five minutes in a warm bath with a lot of lemon juice, peroxide and baking soda mixed in. The acids in those ingredients will break down the oil that the skunk sprays. Our dogs have encountered skunks too often, so we have a supply of these things on hand now.

The acid in tomato juice can do this too, but that stuff stains.

[Zinjadu]

We have sooo many regular stinky customers it's not even funny!

The 2 slightly 'challenged' brothers who always come in right before closing - urine, BO, bad breath, dirty torn clothing, and they NEVER buy toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant or soap. I always sanitize after they come through. The one night they had kleenex and toilet paper, didn't have enough money, and decided to put back the TP. I tried so hard not to laugh, picturing them not using TP after going #2. (I have an over-active imagination!)

The mother and daughter that reek of urine and BO, who are also somewhat 'challenged'.

The woman who looks like she's about 100 years old and reeks of cigarettes. Her teeth are black stumps, and as soon as she opens her mouth, the stink makes you gag and take a few steps back. The worst thing is that she always tries to hold long conversations with us.

The middle-aged guy whose breath smells like rotting meat. I hold my breath as much as possible whenever he comes through, and turn to the side to breathe in!

The young woman who works somewhere in the mall and wears so much perfume I almost faint/gag/die/break out in a rash! The smell lingers for a long time after she leaves, too.

Those are some of our worst offenders.

[Cvstos]

Couple of customers I've seen a couple times are real bad. Father and son, no less. Redneck and urkel, only white and fat. BO to the max. It's so bad that their elbows aren't just ashy, they're GREEN.

[Retail_Addict]

I've encountered a couple of really raunchy smelling customers in my nine years of retail.

One of the worst was an old man who was a bit looney...used to come into our store all winter wearing shorts. (This in MN!) He had this obsession with self-tanner, and would go to the cosmetic counter and load up on the stuff. He was so orange it wasn't even funny. Wouldn't have been bad, except for the fact that I doubt he bathed much, because the strong smell of self-tanning lotion and cigarettes was SO strong it lingered forever!

The latest is a woman that comes into my store that has the worst smelling feet ever! When she leaves after trying on clothes, I have to go into the fitting room to retrieve what she doesn't want. I was literally gagging from the stinky feet smell last time she was in. I swear her sandals are rotting!