Do your local Charity Shops ‘smell’?

After 10 years of sorting donations I’m used to some of the horrors with clothing but the 2 things that still make me 🤬 is the food still clinging to kitchenware.
The other one is what we call the deceased drawers. I don’t mean the ones you wear but the kitchen ones.
It’s obvious that a family member has cleared out the house of a deceased relative. They literally tip the contents of these drawers into a bag and dump on us.
I don’t think people realise how much the skips cost us. Like others our skip is emptied once a week. Quite often I’ve had to take a run to the council tip to dump other peoples rubbish 🤬🤬

I've never been in a charity shop that doesn't smell of mustiness.

I have never been into a charity shop that smelled. Possibly someone had just been in and handed sacks of stuff over and when the staff opened the bags it was full of clothes that reeked of tobacco etc etc and they had not had a chance to get them outside and into the bin and to air the shop.

None of the charity shops in my small Oxfordshire town (MOnica you know where I mean) smell. But last summer, returning from Highgrove, my daughter and I stopped off at a small town close by. We wandered around the shops and popped in to a charity shop. Once inside we looked at each other and quietly said 'it smells '. We left immediately. The shop really did have a very unpleasant odour of unwashed clothing.

Our local charity shops are a credit to the staff - they are clean, have excellent goods, and a fair amount of brand new items. Several have window displays that are so attractive it is hard to believe they are charity shops. One shop did smell awful - then someone told me it was the manager; when he wasn't there the shop was quite fragrant.

I don't use charity shops as my friend got scabies from a jumper.

Most charity shops round us smell like any other shop. However, l like looking round charity shops wherever l go. It is always a shock to walk into one that has that smell. I feel grubby myself and get out of the shop as soon as I possibly can.
I don't think staff at many charity shops wash clothes - they don't have time. Some years ago, a friend who lives in a small village, asked me to take a bag of clothes to our local charity shop. This particular friend is not one for housework, to say the least, and the clothes had obviously been taken unwashed from the laundry basket. However, l could see that the clothes were good quality and washed and ironed them myself. My daughter, who was a teenager at the time, couldn't believe that I would do this but, as I explained to her, the shop would make a fair amount of money from the clothes in their clean state but, if I had left them in the state they were in, they would have gone straight in the rags bag.

I agree, a lot of stored clothes do smell, even if wrapped carefully. I find that even posh shops that sell second hand designer clothes do have that certain niff, but I appreciate that not everybody has a very good sense of smell.
I try to avoid storing mine in an enclosed space, my walk-in wardrobe has no door and is quite spacious, but even then I need to clean my special occasion clothes before I wear them again. Obviously not all clothes can be washed, but even some "dry clean only" garments can be washed carefully, though sometimes steaming is enough.

Most of the shops I have been in suffer from a dusty smell. When I'm in there my dust allergies act up so I make sure I have lots of tissues with me.

So, it’s not just me? I can’t bear the smell in 90% of charity shops. I just don’t understand why it’s not a priority for those running the shops. I’m definitely not against buying second hand. I’m a keen user of Vinted. I’m also supportive of charities, but the smell is so off-putting.
I dislike synthetic air fresheners, but there are other scents that can be used to freshen the air which wouldn’t be expensive and might encourage more customers.

In this town some do and some don't. I take my things to one that doesn't.

I don't think you can blame the charity shops, so often people donate unwashed, smelly clothes. There are reports of dirty underwear and used nappies being left in bags at charity shops. I feel sorry for the staff who have to sort it and get rid of all the rubbish.

I was interviewing applicants for a receptionist position and one very likely candidate, according to her CV, came in sat down and she ponged, literally she smelled. She was very smartly dressed, very tidy but oh dear I couldn’t stand the odour. I rushed through the interview, quickly asked her about her hobbies, she said she loved Charity shops, looking for bargains, everything she was wearing was from an animal charity shop. I wanted to tell her she should wash everything she bought as it also included the mustiness and stale sweat. I couldn’t give her the job and hoped someone would eventually tell her why she was having difficulty finding a position. This was many years ago and I know Charity shops have now overcome any problems they had in the past as I like to have a look round the ones in our town looking for glass paper weights, my hobby.

Being an ex manager of a local charity shop you would not believe what some people hand in as donations, the smells and sights leave a lot to the imagination. personally I have little sense of smell so relief on my volunteers to tell me if something stank and therefore didn't go on shop floor. All kinds of people also try things on or return them with an awful smell. Wish everyone would wash and dry clothes before donating it would make everyone life easier

My AC always say theres a 'charity shop smell' if we go in one on holiday etc, but its not offensive as such, they mean like old book smell and/or mothballs etc.

But i've stopped buying clothing in them in case of the bed bug thing..Whenever i donate clothes they are always washed, but not always ironed.

The charity shops where I live all smell fine apart from one which absolutely stinks! If the doors are open then you can smell it as you go past 😳

There’s a very distinctive smell that usually comes from young men who have washed their t shirts but put them away without airing them properly. Sometimes my partner does that, too and I have to tell him.It always used to be prevalent at rock concerts back in the day when I used to go to them.

I used to volunteer in a charity shop and we didn’t have the facilities to launder clothing, only iron it. Thankfully most donations were already clean.

In one town I shop in, the charity shops all smell perfectly OK to me. In another, they nearly all have a horrible smell of stale sweat that completely puts me off the idea of buying clothes there.

Lathyrus3

The sad fact is that all clothes smell if they are stroked unworn and unaired fir any length of time.

Yes even yours and mine😱

I’m afraid elderly people’s wardrobes and drawers often gave a distinctive ‘stored’ smell and then so do they.

Its a timely nudge to me to clear out a few items that rarely see the light of day😬

That’s a worrying thought, Lathyrus. Do you think if, instead of storing clothes in drawers and wardrobes, I flung them around the place & left them where they landed for days on end, as some teenagers I’ve come across do, they’d smell any sweeter?

Oh my good grief. I buy most of my clothes from Charity shops. I often go in a few looking for bargains, mostly clothes. Yes, some are a bit smelly, and some are like high fashion retailers.

If I think the clothes smell I just put them thought the wash and wear them after.

What is wrong with some people?

A charity shop in a small town near me (not the town Aldom mentioned) absolutely ponged when I went in once.

staceygrove

I don't use charity shops as my friend got scabies from a jumper.

😩

Celieanne86

I was interviewing applicants for a receptionist position and one very likely candidate, according to her CV, came in sat down and she ponged, literally she smelled. She was very smartly dressed, very tidy but oh dear I couldn’t stand the odour. I rushed through the interview, quickly asked her about her hobbies, she said she loved Charity shops, looking for bargains, everything she was wearing was from an animal charity shop. I wanted to tell her she should wash everything she bought as it also included the mustiness and stale sweat. I couldn’t give her the job and hoped someone would eventually tell her why she was having difficulty finding a position. This was many years ago and I know Charity shops have now overcome any problems they had in the past as I like to have a look round the ones in our town looking for glass paper weights, my hobby.

That’s what I mean, you can walk past someone in the supermarket & know they have bought something from a charity shop, either that, or it’s something that has been stored for a very long time.