- Here's a picture of me in a mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I was gonna go over to the cemetery and film this video onsite, but I've been photographed and filmed at Hollywood Forever multiple
times for magazines and shows, and each time it costs, like,
$250 for a half an hour, and there's a guy on a golf cart that follows you around the whole time, going, "12 minutes. "You've got 12 minutes." So I'm just gonna rock this
one from the calm safety of my own home. - [Man] 12 minutes. You've got 12 minutes. - Damn it. (quirky synthesizer music) Today's question comes from Jennifer. She asks, "I've written this before, "and I'm sorry to harass you with it, "but I'm really curious about the answer. "Why don't mausoleums smell of decay? "Also, great job on so many videos." First of all, yes, Jennifer, I am doing such a great
job with the videos. Thank you for noticing. Second, when will you cease
this everlasting harassment? Third, mausoleums don't smell of decay because of air vents and drains. Thanks, see you next time. (jazzy music) All right, I suppose it's
a little more complicated than just air vents and drains, although those are both important. This is a great question, though. You're walking down the
hall of a mausoleum. There are literally hundreds of corpses in the walls around you. Why doesn't it smell like ye
old rotting body emporium? My dear friend Jeff, hi Jeff, used to manage cemeteries, so I took this question to him first. What he said is that
mausoleums don't smell beside the inside of the crypt, that's the little hole
where you put the body, doesn't have any connection
to the main mausoleum hallway where the mourners would walk through. It's kind of like the
concept that our GI tracts are actually outside the human body, because it's just a hole that
passes all the way through. As they say in science, your large intestines is like
the crypt of the human body. In a well-constructed mausoleum, the individual crypt, your eternal cubby, will have access to drain, often through a backwards angled floor, as well access to air
through the vent system. Drainage and vents, give
me drainage and vents. Here's a quick decomposition refresher. As you decay, the bacteria are eating away at the smorgasbord of your innards, liquefying them and often creating gas and smells and attracting insects. Sitting there all sealed up
in your death cubby hole, the gases and soups
that were formerly known as Jennifer have to go somewhere. If you have a casket
that can breathe or burp, as it's called, weirdly, and the crypt has proper ventilation, the gases can escape
into the outside world, away from the mourners' noses. Burping caskets also allow the corpse to come into contact with crucial air, which speeds up dehydration, which in turn wards off the stink. Of corpse, of corpse, of course, of course, even if the corpse
is properly ventilated, there's still gonna be
some unavoidable moisture and post-mortem sludge. If the sludge should breach
the walls of the casket, that's when the angled
floor and drainage system is going to be a real lifesaver. Death saver. Smell saver? Some mausoleums will actually
put the entire casket into a giant bag with a gas release valve in order to catch the escaping fluids. Crypt liners are another option, basically giant pads put in
the crypt to absorb fluid. One company I checked out online said that each of their crypt liners could absorb up to
eight gallons of liquid, and multiple liners could
be used in one crypt. Congrats. That's a lot of human corpse liquid. On top of the vents and the drains and the bags and the pads, the inner shutter, or
inner door of the crypt, is sealed shut with
caulk or silicone glue. The outer door, the pretty one with Mom's name on it in gold, is just for decoration. So as you can see, there is a lot of
opportunity for bad odors inside of a mausoleum. So if you're in one and it doesn't small, the mausoleum operators
probably know what they're doing and are doing it well. But freak occurrences can occur. Vents get plugged, drains get clogged, doors don't get properly sealed. But the casket inside
can actually be among the biggest woes for a mausoleum operator. If a corpse is trapped
inside a totally sealed or protective casket with
no access to air at all, that post-mortem juices and sludge and gas is building up inside, sometimes to the point
that it just knocks the lid right off the casket, as we've talked about in previous videos. If this happens, the door of the crypt
might actually rupture, allowing for odors, as well as possibly fluids, to be released into the mausoleum. And no, it doesn't matter if
the body has been embalmed. We've talked about this before. Even an embalmed body
will eventually putrefy. When faced with completely sealed caskets, sometimes mausoleum
operators will go so far as to unscrew hardware, cut holes in the rubber seal, prop the lid open just so the blessed air can do its magic on
dehydrating the corpse. If a mausoleum is poorly
constructed or operated, yeah, there is a chance for bad odors, especially if there's not
proper drainage or ventilation. So next time you're shopping
for a spot in a mausoleum, sniff around a bit. Those crypts may leave
something to be desired. There you go, Jennifer. Most mausoleums don't smell bad, but if they do, that may be why. I'll openly admit this. Mausoleum burial is not my
favorite type of burial. Don't get me wrong. I love decomposition
and post-mortem sludge. I just want to decompose into the earth or out in the open air, not in a little concrete box. But if you have one of those, if your family member has
been buried in one of those, if you've already bought one for yourself, what is it about it that appeals to you? I'd really like to know. Thanks, see you next time. (jazzy music) Brought to you with support from People's Memorial Association and the Co-op Funeral Home, and donations from viewers like you. Like Jennifer Jacobi. Drainage and vents, give
me drainage and vents.
