Do your local Charity Shops ‘smell’?

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 😳

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 🤬🤬

All shops and homes have their ' smell ' . Think shoe shops, cheese shops and book shops . My favourite is a fish and chip shop . So used items coming from houses will have a smell . Fresh air and a good wash soon gets rid of all that. I love a visit to a charity shop - happy bargain hunting .

I buy DH shirts from the charity shops for gardening and outside jobs, but a couple I bought recently have been like new and good enough to go out in. M&S, Blue Harbour and similar.

Always washed and ironed before he wears them though.

Mt61

I have walked pass someone in the Supermarket & I can whiff out that charity shop smell, it’s like moth balls & stale perfume.
My main fear is bedbugs, or cockroaches, those that live in cracks & crevices.
I once bought a second hand wardrobe, came from a second hand shop, I ended up with wood worm 😩

I’ve always bought things from charity shops. In fact I find it well nigh impossible to walk past a charity shop without going in for a browse around. But my recent beetle infestation made me realise that I could have taken clothes to a charity shop ( I am trying to declutter) that contained carpet beetle larvae which, once in your home are a nightmare to get rid of. Fortunately my infestation was furniture beetle from a wicker basket I had bought from a charity shop and they aren’t invasive in the way that carpet beetles ( which I’d never heard of before) but it’s made me very wary of buying any clothes from a charity shop in future. I agree that some shops do smell a bit off. I always make a point of praising the ones that are beautifully laid out and fresh smelling. Are clothes steamed before being put on display?

Has anyone who works in a charity shop seen anything crawling?

Mt61

Oh I nanny noodles, I seen black bags piled high outside our hospice shop, even though there are huge notices.
As for books I would bag them & put in the freezer for a week.

Know🙄

Oh I nanny noodles, I seen black bags piled high outside our hospice shop, even though there are huge notices.
As for books I would bag them & put in the freezer for a week.

As I said on a different thread, our Oxfam shop is a wee Treasure Trove. Fusty or other smells would put me off going in. So, it's worth letting your shop know there is a problem, or they will lose so much custom.

AuntieE I don’t think many charity shops wash the clothes, do you realise how much most get donated?
We get so many bags a day it would be impossible.
The really awful stuff, think dirty, ripped, smelly gets binned.
The majority gets ragged and the rest that we can sell gets steamed, that’s the best we can do but our shop definitely doesn’t smell.
I think unfortunately some people think charity shops are just somewhere they can dump what they don’t want, easier than going to the dump maybe.