Back when I was living with my parents, our house developed this awful smell—like rotten eggs. At first, we thought it was just the trash or maybe something left in the fridge too long. But no matter how many times we cleaned, scrubbed, or took the garbage out, the smell lingered.It wasn’t constant either. Some days it was faint, almost unnoticeable, and other days it filled the entire house. My mom was getting headaches from it, and my dad swore it was “just the plumbing.” But after a plumber inspected the sinks and drains, everything checked out fine.
Weeks passed, and the smell only got worse. We started avoiding certain rooms in the house because it was so strong. My mom sprayed air freshener constantly, but it only mixed with the smell, making things worse.Then one night, I had a dream.In it, I was standing in the hallway of our house, and everything was quiet. Out of the silence, my grandfather appeared—my grandfather who had passed away years earlier. He looked younger than I remembered, strong and calm. He didn’t say hello, didn’t smile—he just looked me in the eyes and said:
“You need to go into the garage. Behind the shelf.”I woke up immediately. It was so real that my heart was racing. I brushed it off at first—just a weird dream—but the next day, the smell in the house was unbearable. For some reason, I couldn’t get my grandfather’s words out of my head.That evening, I went into the garage. The air was thick, heavy, and sure enough, the smell was even stronger in there. I looked at the shelves against the far wall—stacked high with boxes of old books, paint cans, and tools—and I hesitated.Finally, I grabbed the side of the shelf and dragged it forward, the metal legs screeching against the floor.
And that’s when I saw it.A thin, jagged crack in one of the old gas lines, just barely visible behind the shelf. I could hear it then—an almost imperceptible hiss.We called the gas company immediately. The worker who came out told us we were lucky. That smell—the “rotten egg” odor—was an artificial chemical added to natural gas as a warning sign. He said if we hadn’t found it when we did, things could have turned out much worse.After the repair, the smell vanished. Just like that.To this day, I don’t know if it was coincidence, or if my grandfather truly came to me in that dream. All I know is, whenever I smell something strange in my house now, I never ignore it.
