r/whatisit • u/Wizard3yes • 3h ago
New, what is it? Mystery liquid in shed
Recently bought a new home. The previous owner left a ton of beekeeping, as well as gardening supplies in the shed. I'm terrified of opening any of them, so I don’t know what they smell like.
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u/thenerfviking 3h ago
Best case scenario: Sugar water/nectar for feeding bees.
Worst case scenario: Piss.
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u/albertogonzalex 3h ago
It's not the worse case scenario, bec ause people who pee in bottles like this are never ever this well hydrated.
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u/Ishidan01 3h ago
I agree. Color is also too consistent over the bottles.
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u/LonelyPie4076 2h ago
Also urine darkens over time so unless it’s fresh, it’s unlikely to be urine
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u/ay_non 2h ago
thank goodness for this chain of piss experts (not kidding, they're right afaik)
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u/Delicious_CoughSyrup 1h ago
pee bottle experts (mine has the most upvotes yay me) are beating the snot out of apiariasts in this hobbyist thred. Suck it, beekeepers!
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u/Open_Boysenberry_363 3h ago
Maybe this prolific pee-saver liked to also carefully hydrate to keep their pee the same color…. Like a personal challenge, or better yet their perceived perfect pee
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u/Oops_All_Bans 3h ago
Lotta risk for not much gain
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u/Character_Divide_998 3h ago
Depends on your goal
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u/stoic_guardian 3h ago
I mean… unless you have a fetish for mystery pee… sugar water is pretty easy to make
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u/Nruggia 3h ago
TBF mystery pee is pretty easy to make to.
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u/stoic_guardian 3h ago
It’s the mystery part I think would be tough. I can’t make or request pee and have it be a mystery to me.
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u/Nruggia 2h ago
Throw some jugs in a public restroom with a sigh requesting mystery pee. In the morning: Profit
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u/No-Membership-5314 3h ago
You’re pretty optimistic about the worst case being piss…
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u/Human-Ad9835 3h ago
This was my exact thought. More like worst case senario some sort of acid.
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u/thenerfviking 3h ago
You could do cool things with a bottle of acid but there’s not much fun to be had with a bottle of piss unless you’re a member of some very specific subcultures.
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u/Human-Ad9835 3h ago
Yeah but figuring out that its acid if your not expecting it can have some pretty dire consequences. And i dont mean fun acid i mean melt your hand off acid.
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u/Ishidan01 3h ago
Also possible: gasoline. Farmers will store their small engine gas in anything, believe me. Being yellow, it's not two cycle mix like for chainsaws or weedwackers, but that's the perfect size for fueling a one handed generator, walk behind tiller, or lawnmower.
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u/IamShrapnel 3h ago
if it were piss it's very fresh. as a construction worker I have found so many piss bottles (mainly on roof tops) and they all turn a dark brown color.
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u/Lazerius 33m ago
The previous owner was a bee keeper, so likely he wasn’t drinking as much as the typical construction worker.
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u/henrydaiv 3h ago
Could be worse than piss. I dunno how but it probably could be.
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u/Faithfulness2743 1h ago
Worst case scenario is actually:
Embalming fluid for the bodies the former owner left under slabs in the basement.
{Watching 48 Hours episodes over here, so...yeah}
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u/lilpickins 3h ago
My college roommates tried making LSD in the bathtub. Left behind a few jugs like this…
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u/OGLikeablefellow 3h ago
Might be sugar water for the bees over winter
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u/OGLikeablefellow 3h ago
You'd probably be able to tell, like the 'legs" would probably let you know if it was syrupy
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u/WeeklyBanEvasion 3h ago
That has to be what it is. Looks the same as the stuff I used to mix up when I had bees
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u/Bfranx 3h ago
The kind of person who would be peeing in containers like this is not the kind of person that would have healthy colored pee.
Could be sugar water, could be plant food, but I'd bet almost anything it's not urine.
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u/Frosty_Strategy6801 3h ago
That was my logic as well, pee hoarder wouldn’t have such consistently healthy pee.
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u/Throwawaylikeme90 3h ago
We used to make mead in jugs like this when I was a teen, just burp them once or twice a day when it’s really rolling, then cap it off towards the end of primary fermentation to get a little fuzz, then siphon it off the dregs. Our primary vessel was one of those big ass cheesy poof barrels.
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u/narwhal_breeder 2h ago
Mead? Damn - that’s some high class teen hooch.
We used to pour sugar and champagne yeast into water and use a balloon. mildly carbonated, 14% abv sprite pretty much.
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u/Throwawaylikeme90 2h ago
Trust that it didn’t taste high class, tasted like Fleischmans mostly. We just got obsessed with mead cause we pilfered off my friends mums jug of Irish mead she brought back from a trip home. Ours were uh, pretty spectacular failures in comparison.
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u/Carnivorous__Vagina 2h ago
We used to just pay a homeless guy at the liquor store to buy us a bottle for 20 bucks
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u/OozeNAahz 2h ago
As is traditional. Ancient monks used only the finest of cheesy puff barrels to make their mead.
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u/Delicious_CoughSyrup 3h ago
That is too healthy to be stored piss. Waaaaay to diluted. If you are peeing in containers it is not that light.
Source: I worked on the highway, and unhealthy ass truckers fling gatorade bottles out their windows. They piss Citrus Cooler to Lemon-Lime, Color is all wrong.
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u/Dismantlingfrank 3h ago
Way she goes
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u/Brave_Educator5934 2h ago
Idk man when I drink lots of beer it turns clear. If this is just a shed could be a drinking spot. But why not go outside?
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u/Delicious_CoughSyrup 2h ago
Clear on your stream, but my dude, you are actively dehydrating while you flush alcohol. What you see in the bowl is you plus water.
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u/Practical_BowlerHat 1h ago
Piss in bottles also darkens over time, to some kind of orangey brown. Piss bottles abandoned in a shed for a while should look more like liquor and less like lemonade.
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u/QueenMEB120 1h ago
It doesn't take long for pee to darken either. Even after 2 days it is already darker.
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u/MowingInJordans 3h ago
Unless it's pre-diluted clean urine for their UA tests.
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u/patpend 3h ago
Is it sweet?
If it is, the previous owner probably has diabetes
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u/No_Raccoon4947 3h ago
This made me laugh so hard my wife made me show her.
She says "gross."
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u/J-HoLovesYou 3h ago
This made me laugh out loud as well. I showed my husband and he just went “hm” and looked away 😐
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u/Usernamesaregayyy 3h ago
Pee jugs usually get dark brown pretty quick and would not be all uniform. (I lived in a van for five years)
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u/HonoluluEpstein 3h ago
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u/Usernamesaregayyy 3h ago
You prolly don’t want to hear about mixing pee jugs up with water jugs at 3 in the morning in the Nevada desert when you are desperate for some hydration…
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u/idknuffin69 3h ago
Legitimately, if the prior homeowner was a beekeeper, and you found those jugs in an area where one could safely assume beekeeping related supplies were stored, those very well could be jugs of sugar water or whatever. If that’s the case, sugar water ferments. The more it ferments, the more pressure builds up in those bottles. If those are indeed jugs of sugar water, they are indeed fermenting, and eventually they will explode into a mess that you DO NOT want to clean up.
It might be best to either just ask the prior homeowner if you’re able, or at least open them up and give them a sniff.
You could also just throw them away.
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u/Wizard3yes 3h ago
Good to know!
I've only had access to the new house for a couple of days and hadn't thrown it out because I was planning on donating it to the beekeeping society if it was anything useful to them.
But knowing they might blow up??? Gonna have to take one for the team and sniff them or throw them out asap.
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u/idknuffin69 3h ago
Anything that ferments builds pressure the more it ferments. Those are non-carbonated juice bottles. They’re not meant to hold pressurized things.
Yeah just give them a whiff to be on the safe side. Not worth donating to an apiary if you can’t really say for sure what it is. If it’s not a chemical just put them in the dumpster.
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u/Boring-Community-100 3h ago
And, when fermented, even before it explodes, the sugar water becomes toxic to bees and hummingbirds. This is why you must rinse and refill your hummingbird feeder every few days.
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u/idknuffin69 3h ago
To piggyback on my comment, if it’s sugar water then they probably won’t really have a smell. But pp always has a smell. It’s most likely sugar water. But in any instance, if they are not chemicals (where I grew up I’d occasionally know people that stored gasoline/kerosene in similar bottles but nowadays people generally have enough sense not to do that), they can likely be safely put in the garbage. But it’s highly likely not urine. Despite the hilarious comments saying it is. Even if it is, it can be thrown out.
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u/Ok-General1343 3h ago
Looks like the sugar water my mom makes for hummingbirds. She even keeps it in the same juice bottles lol
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u/Lady_GreyFog 3h ago
Someone may have tapped some trees. Birch water?
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u/TheSmellOfTheLotion 3h ago
What do you do with birch water?
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u/Lady_GreyFog 3h ago
My grandma drinks it 🤷♀️ high in minerals and antioxidants
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u/robjwrd 3h ago
What does it taste like?
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u/Lady_GreyFog 3h ago
Its like... if la croix had a birch flavor... very faintly sweet water
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u/Shadow-Vision 3h ago
So it tastes a truck full of sparkling water drove past some birch trees?
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u/Waste_Owl_1343 3h ago
I think it's too clear to be urine aka pee. I'm an RN and I've seen a lot of specimens
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u/FarWrongdoer5434 3h ago
Why are so many commenting piss jugs? Like is it a thing people do, if so what the heck is wrong with people
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u/DeniedAppeal1 3h ago
It's a common thing that mentally ill people do, yes.
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u/FarWrongdoer5434 3h ago
As someone with a few mental illnesses I did not know this. Thank you for your answer I was being genuine when I asked and I am surprised with all the genuine answers I have been given. Thanks everyone
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u/S-o-D-42 3h ago
I have watched enough Hoarders to know that this is not what a piss jug looks like.
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u/Spuzzle91 2h ago
I knew a lazy ass dude who would piss in bottles so he wouldn't have tonleave his desk to use the bathroom. He was gross as hell.
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u/Logical_Trash_4890 2h ago
Do I upvote you if I think it’s piss jugs. There pissjugs.
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u/AppropriateCap8891 2h ago
In the military, hell yes.
When you are part of a convoy where your next stop is over 2 hours away and you are chugging down gallons of water a day, you keep a piss jug on hand.
When there is always a chance you could come under attack and you may be stuck in the improvised bunker for hours, to have a piss jug on hand.
I always have a piss jug available in my car, even though thankfully I have never needed it. But one never knows, I have been stuck on the freeway in the past for over three hours.
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u/FarWrongdoer5434 2h ago
See this makes perfect sense to me. Even though I'm not American, thank you for your service, the service you provide to your country in turn still affects me and mine. Much respect
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u/AppropriateCap8891 2h ago
We also keep a urinal in the car for my wife, for the same reason.
One time we were stuck on the freeway for almost 6 hours because of a major accident (thankfully we were in our motorhome so the bathroom was not an issue). And we had been stuck on the I-40 for hours when a blizzard closed it.
To me, simply having something like that on hand is just good common sense. I always have a "disaster kit" in the trunk for just those reasons. But I also dump it as soon as possible, and either wash it or throw it away.
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u/FarWrongdoer5434 2h ago
Wow I couldn't imagine being stuck on a freeway for that long and then a blizzard closing it. I live in Melbourne VIC Australia, it's a fairly large city I would say, but nothing like you mention. Unfortunately our government is shit and we pay the highest taxes, the most taxes, the highest toll amounts and our roads are so bad a man hit a pothole on his motorbike and sadly passed away, RIP
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u/AppropriateCap8891 1h ago
We were on the freeway when the blizzard arrived. That is actually not all that uncommon in some areas of the US,
They try to close freeways before it gets that bad, but sometimes conditions worsen far faster and more extreme than expected.
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u/Haluszki 2h ago
I used to do HVAC and many customers would not let you use the bathroom and sometimes there were tight deadlines to get from one job to the next. You better believe I always had an empty jug in the back of the van for an emergency.
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u/FarWrongdoer5434 2h ago
Again makes perfect sense. I honestly have obviously been under a rock. Thank you everyone for not being dicks and giving me actual answers, which make perfect sense.
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u/original_pasturenaut 3h ago
drink it
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u/AlfredoCheeseSauce 3h ago
looks like piss jugs to me bubs, that's the way she goes.
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u/Carpe_the_Carp 3h ago
You can’t just go firin’ off piss jugs all over the park
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u/lIlIIlIIllIllIlIIIll 3h ago
Didn’t you exchange numbers at closing? Text and ask, or have the real estate agent reach out and ask.
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u/Wizard3yes 3h ago
She left the state as soon as we were under contract, only met her realtor once and contacting him is like pulling teeth. I think they might be worried we'll find something like pee jugs in the shed.
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u/BilliamClimptonIII 3h ago
Take a little one, walk outside, far away from the house, and crack it open. Don't have to open all the way. If it's urine, you'll know REAL quick
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u/PracticalApartment99 3h ago
Well, if YOU won’t smell them, how in the hell are WE supposed to know what’s in them?
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u/Syntania 3h ago
Aged urine tends to turn cloudy and/ or an orange amber color. This is more likely to be sugar water or something similar.
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u/Immediate-Exam-3889 3h ago
Piss jug piss is darker…someone once told me
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u/Livid_Average_8098 3h ago
You shouldn't smell anything that you don't know what it is. Does this smell like chloroform to you? Could be an acid, though probably not. I'd be throwing it away.
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u/Mother-Attention2600 3h ago
Looks like piss. It's probably not that yellow because he was pounding beers.
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u/ZimaGotchi 3h ago
What exactly are you terrified of?
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u/Wizard3yes 3h ago
That it's piss. 😭
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u/Frosty_Tangerine_565 3h ago
If it’s a piss jug, that guy must be pretty healthy and hydrated. Good lookin pee
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u/TartComfortable41 3h ago
I think its fertilizer. I just seen this in another sub (gardening) and it was the exact same color & in a few different bottles.
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u/whereswa1den 3h ago
Just taking a longshot best case scenario wild guess, but possibly homemade booze made from plum or pear? In Czech Republic everyone has a relative that makes the stuff., and they usually reuse fruit juice and/or water bottles when storing it.
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u/Efficient-Dot2406 3h ago
If a lot of gardening it could ge collected rainwater, certain plants cant take tap or hose water... just a guess though
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u/Chaotic_Merc 3h ago
Open and smell it? Be a creature with a nose and brain?
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u/Wizard3yes 3h ago
As someone with a brain, I don't go sniffing mystery liquids.
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u/Automatic-Rich254 3h ago
The correct scientific procedure would be to open the cap and waft the smell into your nose, as opposed to sticking it in there and taking a big whiff.
SOURCE my high school chemistry class back in 04
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