Members of the University community walking by Middleton Library recently noticed a putrid stench near the sidewalk facing Memorial Tower.
The smell caused some students to scrunch their noses and ponder exactly what caused the bad odor.
“It’s really bad, and I wish someone could do something to clean it up,” said Maggi Spurlock, a University alumna and Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching employee. “I thought it might have been a pesticide, but no pesticide lasts that long.”
Spurlock walks on the sidewalk where the smell lingers on the way to Himes Hall, which houses CELT.
Julie Tessier, coordinator of External Relations for Middleton Library, has noticed the odor for a few months.
“I smell it every day when I walk by,” she said. “It’s a damp, moldy smell.”
Paul Favaloro, director of Facility Services’ Office of Resource Services, said he had not heard about the stench prior to The Reveille drawing attention to it.
“I’ll have to investigate it,” Favaloro said.
As graduate students Josh Lubin and Lori Penn walked past the library, Lubin asked, “Why does it always stink right here?”
Penn said she was not sure what the smell was but thought it was like “rotting garbage.”
Many people had descriptions of what smell the stench reminded them of, but no one knew what caused it.
After Favaloro conducted an investigation, he said the cause of the stench was the decomposing leaves of the shrubs that are planted along the sidewalk.
Favaloro and horticulture instructor Bob Mirabello identified the plants as viburnum suspensum, which are known for a distinctive smell.
“We trim those trees,” Favaloro said. “Sometimes dead leaves stay inside the trees, and as they decompose they release an odor.”
According to diynet.com, a gardening and landscaping Web site, the plant’s smell is offensive even to some wild animals.
Paul James, host of the Home and Gardening Television program “Gardening by the Yard,” said on the Web site that viburnums can be used as fences to keep out deer. The deer will avoid eating a home garden because they will not approach the plant’s smell.
Mirabello said the only way to avoid the plants’ smell is by not planting them.
“The dead and decomposing leaves probably need to be cleaned up more often and especially after pruning,” he said. “Raking or blowing the leaves from underneath the plants would be the best way.”
Favaloro said in the future, when Landscape Services employees shear the shrubs, they will try to clean up the area better to avoid further unpleasant scents.
Not everyone’s nose is offended by viburnum odors, however. Mirabello said he enjoys the scent.
“I actually like the odor,” he said. “Maybe because I work with plants all the time.”