frowzy
or frouzy
[frou-zee]
1. dirty and untidy; slovenly.
2. ill-smelling; musty.
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As soon as the door was open, Todd was hit with a wall of
stink that was every bit as painful as running head first into a brick
wall. He cringed and held his nose in a
vain attempt to ward off the smell.
“What
is that?” He asked.
“What’s
what?” Kevin replied. He entered the apartment
like nothing was wrong.
“That
smell. What in the world is that smell?”
Kevin
sniffed the air. “What smell?” He
asked. He looked perfectly sincere when
he asked it.
“What
smell? What do you mean ‘what smell’? How can you not smell that?”
Kevin shrugged
his shoulders and gave a non-committal grunt. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”
“It’s
the worst thing I’ve ever smelled.” Todd said as he slowly entered the apartment.
He was
not lying, nor exaggerating. He had once
been sprayed by a skunk, and he had once thought that was the most horrible
scent he had ever been exposed to. Now
that he had experienced Kevin’s apartment, he would have taken the skunk spray
any day.
“I’m
sure you’ll get used to it.” Kevin brushed the comment off.
Todd
slowly entered the apartment, and the smell only got worse. One glance around the place and it was
obvious why the place smelled so bad.
Kevin’s apartment was filthy.
Clothes lay strewn about the floor and furniture, and were covered with
something that Todd did not want to even try identifying. Old, unwashed dishes covered every surface
that was not occupied by dirty clothes, and often times covered places that
were already occupied by something else.
Flies buzzed around the dishes, and when disturbed they moved on to
another dish. Sometimes they even found
actual food, or at least something that had once been food. Bottles and other garbage were just as prevalent
as everything else, so much so that Todd was unable to tell where the floor ended
and the trash started. It seemed like
the floor was made out of old chip wrappers and empty beer bottles.
Todd
let out a string of incoherent sounds, unable to think of actual words in the
face of the most potent mess he had ever seen.
He eventually found his words. “How? How do you live like this?”
“What? Oh, right, the stuff.” Kevin said. “I know it’s not the cleanest place around,
but it works just fine.”
“Not
the—man, this place isn’t unclean. This
place is the very definition of a mess.
I mean, come one, do you just sit on the garbage instead of chairs? Do you even own any chairs?”
“I have
chairs. They’re, uh…” Kevin looked
around, trying to find an actual piece of furniture. “Somewhere.” He said once he gave up.
“You
have got to clean this place up. This is
not cool. I mean it, it’s not just
bad. It’s unhealthy. You can get sick from all this stuff. I’ll be surprised if I don’t get sick after
being here. I mean, it smells like death
and looks just as bad.”
“It’s
not that bad.”
“I bet
the only reason I haven’t seen any rats yet is because there’s so many places
for them to hide.”
As soon
as he said it, Todd swore he saw something looking at him from under a
discarded shirt. It disappeared too
quickly for him to identify, but it was obvious what it was.
“Look,
I will help you clean this place up.” Todd said. “But you have to promise me that if I do, you
will never, ever let it get this bad again.”
Kevin
looked at Todd like he was giving the deal some serious thought. “Alright, fine. I guess I can do that.” He said slowly.
“Great. Now, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To get
supplies. I know you don’t have any in
this place, and we’re going to need a lot of trash bags and air freshener.”
***********************************************
Don't let your place of residence get like this. It's just not good. I'm not the cleanest person in the world, and even I wouldn't let it get this bad. Seriously, if you keep on top of cleaning, it's not that hard. It's only tough if you let the mess pile up for awhile.
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