John, The sewerage gas is actually a small mention in the article, so it probably shouldn't have been in my headline. There are (unsurprisingly) compound issues here in Seoul. My neighbor downstairs is a civil engineer and he and I were talking about how people throw welcome mats over the sewer grates along the curbs. He explained to me that the sewers are too old and complex to easily solve gases, sewer leaks, and cleaning. The mats seal the gasses into the sewer - and as you can imagine cause problems during the summer rainy season if they aren't removed.   Those who have visited Seoul are frequently hit by a wall of sewer smell as you round a corner or descend into a subway tunnel. A citizen-journalist wrote an op-ed article last year. https://medium.com/travel-inside-and-out/today-in-seoul-42-eeuuwww-whats-that-smell-1f1f28401664 I'm not as bothered by the Seoul sewer smell in contrast to the urine smell in downtown Los Angeles. It's almost more comforting to know the difference between someone urinating on a building versus an old sewer trying to carry the wastewater towards a treatment plant.

Published by

John, The sewerage gas is actually a small mention in the article, so it probably shouldn't have been in my headline.

There are (unsurprisingly) compound issues here in Seoul. My neighbor downstairs is a civil engineer and he and I were talking about how people throw welcome mats over the sewer grates along the curbs. He explained to me that the sewers are too old and complex to easily solve gases, sewer leaks, and cleaning. The mats seal the gasses into the sewer - and as you can imagine cause problems during the summer rainy season if they aren't removed.

 

Those who have visited Seoul are frequently hit by a wall of sewer smell as you round a corner or descend into a subway tunnel. A citizen-journalist wrote an op-ed article last year. https://medium.com/travel-inside-and-out/today-in-seoul-42-eeuuwww-whats-that-smell-1f1f28401664

I'm not as bothered by the Seoul sewer smell in contrast to the urine smell in downtown Los Angeles. It's almost more comforting to know the difference between someone urinating on a building versus an old sewer trying to carry the wastewater towards a treatment plant.