Smelly house forces tenants to leave

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - The smell stayed with Louisker Louisjuene long after he left the apartment.

It's a smell he noticed before walking inside his building on 11th Street in Ft. Pierce.

Louisjuene noticed something foul dripping down the ceiling and running down the walls. It smelled like feces.

Louisjuene called Ft. Pierce Police and when officers went upstairs, they discovered it was feces, possibly human.

It had been dumped out everywhere, on the mattress, the couch and the floor.

The crime scene report says, "The room had several dozen containers and a five gallon plastic buckets that all appeared to have contained the offensive material before someone dumped them out onto the floor and furniture in the room."

Police believe the tenant was angry about being evicted. Landlord Oriol Netvil said the renter had been acting aggressive and threatened another tenant with a knife, so Netvil kicked him out.

As for why the man had so many containers of excrement, officers believe it may have been a little-known and widely-speculated way to get high called Jenkem.

Jenkem is an alleged hallucinogenic drug of noxious gas caused by the fermentation of sewage. However, many insist jenkem use is a hoax . Snopes.com, a website designed to debunk internet rumors, says "evidence that jenkem use is a significant phenomenon in the US or that the substance can even produce the effects described is scant."

Inspectors with the Ft. Pierce Building Authority deemed the building unsafe and condemned it, forcing the handful of residents, including Louisjuene, to move out.

He salvaged what he could from his apartment, but many of his belongings were contaminated and had to be thrown out.

"I gotta find somewhere to move," he says. "You know, if you don't have no money right away to move, try to find something."

Police are still looking for the tenant. The landlord estimates the damage to be at least $150,000. He says the building may have to be demolished.