Residents of a building in Samut Prakan believed the fetid smell in the hallways was due to someone’s love of pla raa, the stinky fermented fish paste commonly used to make somtam salad.
What they found was that the smell was emanating from the body of Koson Khemcharoen, 58, who had already been dead for a month in his apartment.
Pla raa, while delicious in small quantities, smells rotten when a larger amount is stored. It can be enough to put people off somtam completely.
Building residents were not alarmed by the fishy smell for some time, since neighbors often eat fermented fish and leave the building smelling badly. They only began to get suspicious when they building had the old fish smell around the clock for weeks. When they knocked on Koson’s door and got no reply, they became concerned and called police.
Bang Sao Thong Police came to the building and entered his second-floor apartment, which was locked from the inside. They found nothing suspicious but the man had passed on, reported Daily News.
Neighbors revealed that the deceased man quit his job a while ago and was selling amulets to make a living.
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