The smell

There has been many a discussions between O and me about "The Smell".

When moving in to our flat, we realized the first evening a strange smell, when going to bed. After sniffing around our bedroom *I did the sniffing around, O just lay calmly in bed*, we came to the conclusion that it was the empty IKEA cardboard boxes, left from when we received our delivery of wardrobes.

Then the mystery tightens. There was no smell in the office, where we have most of the empty boxes, but only in our bedroom and hallway. After contemplating this fact for a while, I realized it was our nosy neightbour's fault. *off course!!*. She told me her flat was smaller than ours, so naturally her kitchen must be somewhere under part our hallway, part our bedroom! Got it, mystery solved!

During my many trips down to the car *we still don't have a parking permit, so I am constantly enjoying the pleasure of running down to pop coins in the parking machine every four hours..*, I have peaked up towards the neighbour's windows. *Surely, you can see a wall where we don't have one?* meaning she obviously has a kitchen under part of our bedroom (and hallway) where the smell is coming from!

Hubbie and I decided we would put laminate flooring in our hallway. *The floorboards are extremely squeeky and we actually se lights coming from the downstairs flat between the floorboards at night, so it's not altogether a bad idea..* We are also going to seal the floorboards in our bedroom with some sort of silicone or something to keep the smell out. It is only there at around 22-24 in the evening, when I picture my neighbour downstairs cooking for a whole batallion and never cleaning her kitchen..

A couple of days ago, I was on my normal route to the car, when I realized it smelled outside our house, the whole neightbourhood was smelling! Starting looking for enormous ventilation holes from some neighbour with a serious kitchen sanitary problem and failing, I started peering down sewage holes by the pavement. Everyone around me was walking around as if there was not a terrible smell around..

So, what is the smell like, you must wonder? It is a very sweet smell, as in the Swedish word "sliskig", which means overpoweringly sweet, and also like wet hay or...my interpretation was it must be an old kitchen fan or something similarly yuckie..

Anyway, so when O returns home from work last night, I told him how was very odd it was that it was smelling outside. He then told me he felt the smell as he came into the the city from the airport with the taxi.

What IS this??!!

So today I googled on my smelly city and yes, the WHOLE city is smelling and apparently most of it's population love it! The reason for the smell is it's breweries...why we only have the smell in our bedroom and hallway is still a mystery, I've been studying a map of breweries *I know, I've got to let this go, I am going to be a specialist on the subject of the brewing process and it's excess smell if I keep this up!*

After 1 month here, I have to admit, I can't stand the smell of my new home town!

So sealing the bedroom floor is not really going to help. Laminates in the hallway is still on, since it is terribly squeeky and my 2year old wakes up by the smallest sound of that floor. And we have to pass her door everytime me need a little nibble when watching television in the evening.

As to the smell, I think I have to decorate with wunderbaums..