PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Something smells rotten in Oshkosh, but no one knows why.
Dozens of people are complaining about a foul odor inside their homes and offices.
From residents to business owners and even a church pastor, those on the south side of Oshkosh — in the area of Oregon, Iowa and Michigan streets near and 7th, 8th and 9th avenues and beyond — are complaining about a foul smell that seems to be permeating into their homes and businesses.
“The wife started smelling like, I guess you could say, corn. What we thought, it was more of sour smell, like almost a dead rodent or whatever,” said Oshkosh resident Dan Kinderman.
Diane Murphy, owner of Evil Roy Slades Sportsbar, said, “It’s horrid. It makes you sick to your stomach and you can’t breathe it in.”
“It was very prominent when we opened the doors. We’d just get this huge whiff. Our first thought was there was some issue with mold and our doormats,” added Pastor Maggie Berndt-Dreyer from Peace Lutheran Church.
“It’s so frustrating. It really is. It’s not fair. And now some people are chiming in they’ve been dealing with this for eight months. We’ve had three maybe, three or four, and we’re struggling. I can’t even imagine,” said Pat Murphy, who helps his sister-in-law run Evil Roy Slades Sportsbar.
Some have hired plumbers to check their pipes. Others have bleached and cleaned. Peace Lutheran Church even spent $700 to replace all their door mats — with no relief.
“Because it’s not one specific building’s problem, we have to come together in some way to figure out how we can find the source, mitigate it. I have no idea,” said Pastor Berndt-Dreyer.
Those dealing with the smell have taken their concerns to city officials, who despite monitoring the area, are just as stumped about the source of the smell.
According to Director of Public Works James Rabe, “We haven’t been able to nail it down yet, so they’ve been continuing to do some monitoring. As we’ve gotten a couple of more calls, some of them are a little different, so it’s been really to try and figure out what could be the cause.”
While city officials don’t believe any nearby construction projects are to blame, and they’re talking with local industrial facilities to see if they’ve changed any processes that could cause the smell to make its way through the sewage system, they don’t want residents to be concerned for their safety as the investigation into the odor continues.
“At this time, nothing that we’ve seen from any of our testing leads us to believe that it is dangerous at this time. It’s just a smell that’s different and some people are more sensitive to it and so it is more disturbing to them,” added Rabe.
As it tries to identify the source of the problem, Oshkosh Public Works encourages people who smell it to report it so they can track cases of the odor.
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