Is it just me, or do lds church buildings have a certain smell? I haven't attended church in years but recently went to a wedding reception at an lds building (one I'd never been to). Right when I walked in I sensed a particular blend of odors I hadn't smelled in years. Certain memories instantly rushed back (not good ones). I got kind of creeped out.

It's a mix of a retirement home smell, suppressed farts, & stale bread.

The (Mormon) spirit stinks [to high heavens]!

A bunch of it is the wall carpet. I have no idea what is it made of but it must be toxic to still have volitiles after 30 years.

Yeah, I always got the worst headaches at church. It could have been from all the bullshit, but it could have been the toxic building materials, as well.

I had headaches every single Sunday.

I mean every Sunday.

Me too. I always got what I called "Sunday headaches". My mom's theory was that it was the chemicals in the carpet, but she still dragged me to church every week.

Yeah, that wall carpet! That's exactly the smell that I'll always associate with the Morg. Why the hell do they use that stuff in every single chapel anyway?

So people can't injure themselves banging their heads against a wall, literally, when the cognitive dissonance finally overcomes them, perhaps?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2016 04:30AM by oneinbillions.

Yes, there's that miasma of empty-tomb, carpet-mites, faux-leather, old-man-lizardy-sweat, dirty-70s-kitchen, dripping faucet, plastic hall floor-covering, tinged with cheap perfume and swished with plastic hall dividers, and your soul creeps and screams and secretes bile - gotta get out! gotta get out! -----

It was way worse before decent air conditioning started. Remember what it was like mid summer with windows painted shut, 300 people in sacrament meeting and then the next ward would come into the same room? I use to get up and go outside it was so bad.

The air is stale stuffy.

I taught school in a building with no windows and it had a similar odor after the new smell of wood and plaster evolved into stale air where hundreds of kiddies are crammed into small spaces where kids use bathrooms and sometime go in their pants or throw up.

Weekly purges of fresh air and sunshine would help the situation.

I recently had the same kind of experience. It doesn't help that every member is a janitor.

The smell of the building is the stench of the hell it is. It's the witness of it's foul guts. Filth. Decay. Rot. They could fumigate weekly but the smell will always stay.

I used to be the ward cleaning coordinator. (Hey, that's a great 'calling.') is But, no matter how hard I tried, the smell never left. It can't be cleaned. It isn't clean.

I think it's the smell of dead souls...

-geezus

I love that old church smell! I like to inhale deeply before joining my brethren in singing one of the many inspirational, peppy hymns...

...while ponderizing the nearest painting of that famous white boy, Jesus Christ...

...as I sit comfortably in my whiter than white shirt and my noose--er, necktie--and my pressed slacks, underneath all of which are my management-issued plastic undies!

(The favorite SM's are when they ask me to help with the bread and water. So while the faithful are warbling away, my colleague and I are tearing the Wonder Bread up into little chunks--me using my unwashed hands, this while I've been fighting a nasty case of the runs for a couple days...)

You like The Smell? Any other fans of The Smell out there? Any rare soul out there who made out on the back row when they were a teen and now love The Smell?

Sensi, you are so nasty. I took my gf to GC at the Tabernacle in the 70's. We sat on the back row listening to SWK. I'll never forget the smell....

Funfact: It is literally the same smell everywhere around the world. I was surprised when I came into the first church building on my mission and it smelled the same like home. Same goes for the bathroom. They all have the same nasty odor. So it must be something inside the units. Even after they renovated the building of my ward the smell came trough again immediately.

That's why Mormons act like their shit doesn't stink. The stench is in their chapels, not their magic underoos.

Somewhere there's a carpet manufacturer with a cozy little business deal that nobody can stick their noses into thanks to loopholes in US corporate law. All of that carpet, year after year, goes worldwide into all of the LDS buildings. So yes, it all smells the same and like it or not, it's become their olifactory signature.

I suppose a joke could be inserted about bleach etc but a sad story such as this doesn't deserve even that.

eau d'Mormon..... gag! The EVIL CULT has always hired the worst architects so it makes sense that the building would stink. The building do all have that eau d'Mormon. Do the temples too?

Also --- ENOUGH BEIGE!! Beige is not a color. It is a crime.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2016 09:43PM by verilyverily.

You, sir, are a genius. Rather than spew anti-gay hatred, let them redecorate all church buildings. Win win.

I can't believe it has been twelve years since I wrote this:

Chapel Smell

(Tune: "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd)


Baby slobber, and baby poo
Worship the Mormon way
There's sweaty clothes and Cheerios
What's that funky air beside you?
Ooooh that smell
Can't you place that smell?
Ooooh that smell
The smell of church surrounds you

Nursing mother is upon you
Messy baby in her arms (ya fool, you)
Don't take another whiff, it's sure to make you sick
One more breath, fool, will gag you (hell yeah)
Ooooh that smell
Just can't shake that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of church surrounds you

Moldy carpet in the hallway
Kid threw up in the Sunday school
Hell, they'll clean it up tomorrow
But tomorrow there'll be more baby poo (yeah, poo)
Ooooh that smell
Mormon chapel smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of church surrounds you

A farting contest from the deacons
There's no window you can crack
Just one more breath, Lord, might be your death
One hell of a price for you to save your soul (hell yeah)

Ooooh that smell
Can't forget that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of church surrounds you
Ooooh that smell
Mormon chapel smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of church surrounds you



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2016 10:16PM by Stray Mutt.

You know, a guy could die laughing.

*

in the stalls. My wife takes a half roll of TP with her in her purse to church in case there isn't any there.

Sensi, you are so nasty. Sat on the back row of GC in the tabernacle. Early 70's. Listened to SWK. Teenagers. I'll never forget the smell...........

-geezus

Nevermo here: I have never been in a Mormon Chapel, nor have I ever seen a church of any other denomination with carpeting on the walls. What is that about?? Carpets on the floor sometimes, but never on the walls in Protestant or Catholic churches I have visited. And if those smell of anything, it is candlewax, flowers, and incense.

I used to go to community meetings held in a Methodist church. The place was built sometime in the '50s and had a musty, mildewy aroma. The same for a Baptist church where I went to a wedding (that place was over 150 years old) and a Catholic church where I attended a funeral. Yes, the mustiness overpowered the funeral flowers. On the other hand, two cathedrals I've been in just smelled like tourists.

There's actually a fix for that: a commercial sized ozone generator. Does wonders with old buildings.

Yip, you picture the English Victorian Methodist Church hall with tinkly upright piano in the corner played badly by the old lady with the flowery bowl-hat, and the old badly stained-oak slated floor that echoes every creepy footstep, and the old worm-riddled pipes of the old organ, and anywhere, anytime you can summon that whiff of insincerity.

Jersey Girl - you may think we've lost our marbley senses, but the myth of the same Mormon Chapel smell the world over is strangely true. Go on, in your lunch hour today - a bit of empirical research - pick any chapel, have a good sniff around, and report back! Best regards

Jersey Girl - I now have a £100 wager (sounds a bit better than back-street bet - legal this side of the murky pond) with a overpaid Mormon scientific dude that if you - the perfect Scientific model - or if there is any other brave soul out there who has never been inside a Morg tomb but is willing in the name of Science to venture body and soul - please brave into any Morg Skull n Bones tomb today - and report back - can you recognise The Smell from the descriptions above?

This is now an important scientific question today that will occupy many from the staff room down the pub.

The reason its the same odor around the world is because it is caused by a critical mass of dirty GARMENTS* in cracks.

I once smelled the "church" odor on an airplane full of missionaries.



Kathleen

*no clean garmies? Better not risk it, just use the dirty ones...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 01:38AM by anagrammy.