Residents of Plaza Park Apartments came to a unanimous consensus this past weekend that the “horrendous, putrid, truly nausea-inducing” smell coming from 97-year-old Gertrude Hatten’s apartment must indeed be a tuna sandwich left on the counter a bit too long.
Neighbors began to notice the scent the day after hearing a loud “thud” sound coming from Mrs. Hatten’s apartment last Tuesday. “She’s been awfully quiet since then, we haven’t seen her come out to get her mail or anything,” commented next- door occupant Marcia Walling. “She must be really embarrassed about the smell from her apartment, or she’s out of trash bags and that’s why she hasn’t taken the tuna out yet. What a nice lady.”
The Plaza Park HOA held a small community meeting Friday evening to determine what could be causing the smell, which Mrs. Hatten did not attend. Various theories were offered, from old takeout leftovers, to wet towels left in the washer, to an unattended cat litter box. Eventually, the residents all agreed that there was only one thing so horrifically noxious it could have rendered the entire apartment building almost uninhabitable and caused one HOA representative to faint upon smelling it: old tuna salad.
“I truly, in my thirty-seven years of life, have never been hit by such a horrible smell,” remarked neighbor Collin Miller. “I’ve cleaned up sewer grates, cracked rotten eggs, been near wet dogs, and it’s just absolutely nothing like anything I’ve experienced before. She must have left that tuna sandwich out for a really, really long time– either that, or it’s just an awful lot of tuna.”
At press time, neighbors wondered if the flies gathering on the inside of Hatten’s windows must be due to a few pieces of spoiled fruit in her fruit bowl.
