When a family member dies. [Odd event].

Hi this is my first ever post on here after reading ATS for a long long time.

I want to ask this question please without being mocked,as it's about my sister who died when I was 17, and she was 22.

It's therefore not an imaginery story, but a real event, and I feel somewhat awkward asking this, however there is nowhere else this sort of question CAN be asked, certainly not with friends or family.

So here we go:
What would cause this?

To put in blunty, after my sister died, which was 100's of miles from my home. We had to do the inevitable and ofcourse clear up her things in her bedroom, for various reasons...

On returning home, and then to her room in the house we noticed something strange. We had been away from home due to visiting the Hospital etc and lots of dramatic things happening (where she didn't stay as she was at University) we basically all noticed a horrible SMELL coming from her room.

I hate to say this, but it was like something had died in there, like a rat or something, like a meaty sewerage smell/cheesy. So we searched the ENTIRE room and found nothing. It was really bad, we had to open the windows and shut the door. I really did think the cat had left a dead bird or something...

This stayed for a long time and eventually went, probably within a week.

Now it's a difficult thing for me to discuss as I want to be respectful to her and feel somewhat guitly even mentioning it, but do any of you think this is a 'paranormal' thing, e.g connected to her passing, or do you think it is coincidence and just an everday weird thing most people have heard of? Then again what is coincidence? Who knows...

It bothered me, as this has never happened before, never happened since, only my family experienced it like this, and we found no food, animals, shampoo, nothing that could have been left to 'rot' and it wasn't doing it before we left the house to get the bad news...

I just found it very strange. I am sure there is an explanation, I just wondered if others here have personally experienced it, or heard of this as some sort of weird phenomenon, as in the ghost 'cold room' thing that of course is debatable x10 over. This is feel is less so, as a smell is your brain detecting a chemical of some sort.

Thankyou, and I apologise for such a morbid first post on ATS, it's just something that has bothered me for a long time.

I think a reasonable explanation would be that a rat died within one of the walls. That may explain why you couldn't find the smell. But there is always the chance that it was paranormal.

I don't think this was a paranormal event.

Sometimes mice, rats, birds etc. die in the walls, attic, furnace ducts and smell very bad until they dry up. This type of thing can also be very localized in just one room.

Sorry about your sister and Peace.

Thanks for posting and sharing the experience with us,

Im really not sure on this one, I do know of the other smells like purfume or smoke which are the normal to link a spriit with ect,

but a bad odour is something really am not sure about,
I will have a look up and see if theres any referance to this kind of even out
out there,


or maybe other members may have some things to share,

did all your family smell this?

Was there any other feeling in the room?

Now i dont want to ask but did your sister die naturaly?
the point of death has alot to do with what happens now if she died of natural or other kind did u grow up in the house if so there is a strong connection between the house and her.now in this case i believe that
it very well is.there are many sides to the afterlife or void of such things.
i am not at liberty to go into deep discussion about your sister but.
what happens to us and how open we are to the real world and the world in our heads determines alot of what happens i have another thread that u should look at.www.abovetopsecret.com...'

My ma's boyfriend died of cancer in hospital and the day he died he was pumped up with morphine to the point he didnt know where he was or who he was and sometime around when he died my ma's cellphone rang and the caller id was from his phone. Not only was it impossible for him to dial a number in the state he was in but he didnt even have the phone with him at the time.

My theory is that coming up to the moment when he died he was fully conscious and had the ability to make the cellphone ring and I think he intended it to be some sort of message telling her he was about to die.

Ph03ziX, rotten smells are generally associated with "evil" spirits, such as demons, and the like. Did you notice anything else that would be considered potentially paranormal?

A bad smell, like the one you described, was most likely something natural, however, the possibility of it being paranormal is always there.

Sorry for your loss.

if your home doesn't have a history of rodent problems then you can automatically rule out the fact that something "died" within your walls. If you do not mind me asking, how did she pass? Normally if one dies a ghastly death then it is possible that an impression of some sort had been left in her room.

When my grandfather died, I felt drawn to enter his vacant room and mutter a silent prayer for safe passge into heaven. But the strang ething was, the room seemed to be an empty void. Like I was floating through an endless vacuum that was lacking life. As soon as I entered that room, it was as if the entire outside world had been vanquished and all that remained was an eerie silence.

[edit on 18-12-2005 by Majestic12]

Thankyou for everyones' replies.

I'm pleased that in general it's obviously a one off event and probably means nothing. Maybe it's purely evidence when these things happen our brains are more receptive to things we don't normally pick up on. Who knows...

I appreciate your warm comments of respect, and I hope ATS stays like this as compared to most of the Internet you all seem of a higher intelligence!

Ph03ziX, was it a rotten egg/sulfur smell?

I have such an odor that tends to follow me around. It's strange in that the smell travels around the house, comes and goes, and most people can't smell it (even though to me it's quite permeating!). Just because it smells nasty doesn't necessarily mean it's evil... it could just be our perception.

Perhaps the odor is a sign that a spirit is near... maybe trying to contact you, or probably just hanging around to see what's up.

Then again, it could just be a rat in the wall too.

Dead mice in heating/air conditioning vents, under floor boards, or inside of walls can smell repugnant.
I had a mouse die somewhere in my office and never found it. It smelled so horrible that when I left work and got home I could still smell it on me. This happened to me years ago also at another place I worked.

Unless your sister was evil.....I'd blame it on a small dead animal.

Last Sept,my mother became very ill being she lived in Colorado I had to find quickest flight I could,by the time I got there it was 3:30 am and unfortunately she had lapsed into a coma,I remember feeling bad that I never got a chance to say goodbye to her,even though I talked to her while in coma really ate at me,uopn returning home to Calif,and having a small urn of her ashes I was awakenen to someone pounding on my bed,I looked at clock it was 3:30 am,this happened 3 times and another thing my daughters cat always snuck in my bedroom and would sleep on my bed,thats when I noticed that the cat would not go past my door,I told a friend of mine about this she told me it was my mother acknowledging that she heard me,so that night when it happened I said "Mom I'm glad you could hear what I had to say and I tried my hardest to get there in time" after that nothing more happened,and cat now would come in to my room so I'm convinced that spirits stay till they finish their buisness before they leave,sure scared me till I talked to someone

I'm so sorry about your sister. My best guess is the bad smell was from a rodent that died in the wall. Of course, there are things out there we don't understand.

I am sorry to hear about your sister. I know the pain of losing a relative as my Mother died due to Cancer in 2002 and it still hurts even now. The above explanations are probably quite true, however i think these words are quite comforting:

" We have learned many things, but most of all, we have learned ..we still have much to learn" (Professor Victor Bergman)

Hope you find peace.