Susan and I have stayed in AirBnB rentals all over the country. We’ve stayed in some pretty normal ones and some pretty weird ones, but never one like the home at 5519 in Minneapolis. Something’s afoot inside (or underneath) this home. Something mysterious. Something nefarious.

Something… stinky.

The offending smell doesn’t hit you right away, the same way ghosts don’t jump out and shout “Boo!” the moment one enters a haunted house. We first noticed the odor after retiring in the living room out first evening. The smell there was so strong that we immediately and bravely began sniffing all the pillows on the couch. Once the smell was inside our noses, it would not leave and tracking its source became impossible. Was it coming from the furniture? The walls? From the crawlspace? We just couldn’t tell.

While my wife was busy sniffing around the air conditioner’s filters, all I could think about was how Canadian tourist Elisa Lam disappeared while staying in the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Her body was discovered two weeks later floating in the hotel’s water tanks up on the roof. During those two weeks, as Elisa’s body was decomposing, several hotel guests complained to the front desk that the water in their room “tasted bad.”

Not only was the source of the smell impossible to locate, but putting a finger on exactly what it was was also difficult. We couldn’t agree if it smelled like something had died, or if the house had a sewage problem. It’s possible something crawled into the sewage system and died. That would explain it.

As Susan continued to look for the source of the stench, I took small sips from my bottle of water, rationing it as slowly as possible. I ain’t drinkin’ no Elisa Lam water.

“I knew it!” said Susan, digging around on the kitchen table. “Coffee beans hidden underneath potpourri. They know they have a smelly problem!”

The odor was stronger in in the living room, dining room, and main bedroom, all of which surrounded a locked closet that appeared to hide the home’s central heat and air unit. Susan theorized it was actually a giant air purifier that had failed, but that didn’t seem likely.

At night, once we had settled in for the night, the smell seemed even stronger. I spent the entire night with my CPAP sucking in the stinky air and blowing it up my nose all night long.

In the morning it seemed like the smell had gone away, although it was more likely we had grown accustomed to it. Each time we left the house our sense of smell reset, and when we returned the stink was there again, waiting for us.

Susan emailed the property owner but we didn’t hear back during our stay, and I’m not sure there’s anything they could have done anyway. We left 5519 earlier this morning and drove across town to our new location, the Marriott located at the Mall of America. There’s a pool, there are three-pronged outlets in the wall, and best of all… the entire place smells great.