Ok so bought a shell from a guy on the beach. Daughter and I noticed it smelled really bad! We were told...."put it in a pot of boiling water" the smell will go away! Well that didn't work. As a matter of fact the whole room smelled like dead shell smell!So the next person said" pour over proof on it". We did that and the smell still wasn't gone. Anyhoo we wrapped said shell in lots of plastic bags to bring it home and left it outdoors for a long time before bringing it inside!