Valerian is the stinkiest stuff on planet earth. Take the smelliest locker room you've ever been in, combine with reeking rotten sneakers that havn't been washed in 10 years, 1000 pairs of old sweaty stinking socks, and multiply that by a factor of 100 and you might come close to 1/4th of the smell emanating from a bottle of Valerian Root. I spent more than a week turning the house upside down trying to find what had died/soured/rotted before I finally determined that it was a bottle of Valerian sitting in a closed cabinet with the lid not completely tight on it. The stuff definitely works, but if you're going to use it store it outside somewhere, preferably at least 20 feet away from a door or open window.