They shouldn't make a gross smelly area under your sink. It sounds like yours was leaking.

I went out of my way to get one installed in a house that didn't have one. So, yeah.

If yours is making a mess under the sink, it's either broken or installed wrong.

I use mine all the time, much easier than dealing with a nasty sink strainer as I just spray down the sink into the disposal and run it. Also keeps the trash from smelling.

If it's being smelly under the sink, it's broken or not installed right. If it's being smelly from the drain hole sink side then you're not cleaning it from time to time (Which is as easy as dropping in some cleaner and running it every other month or so).

I'm actually looking to upgrade mine so it can handle some bones

They were never a thing in Europe.

The sewage treatment is not built to handle that kind of stuff. The sewage pipes aren't too happy about it, either. I might flush some carbs down the toilet. The poop-munching bacteria at the treatment plant get a nice growth boost from it. Grease not only clogs your own pipes, but causes issues for the whole city. I think it's possible to get fined for it if you'd get caught starting a year or two back.

Food waste goes in the trash or compost. If it goes in the trash it's burned at industrial temperatures to burn clean. The heat is used for district heating networks.

I’ve never not had one, do you scoop all your food waste out of the sink with your hands? Cleaning is as easy as dropping a lemon peel in once in a while or a tray of ice.

Didn't grow up with one, but consider it standard now. There should be an organic stream to waste disposal. Much more green to send your plate scrapings to the treatment plant than to wrap them up in plastic and bury it in a landfill.

I use it all the time. Dump dishes into trash, rinse everything that sticks off in sink, grind up all the food bits from that in the disposal, put dishes in dish washer.

It's only gonna get gross and smelly under your sink if something is wrong with the disposal. And if you're not throwing a shit ton of garbage down it, just the little bits that wash off when doing dishes, it's not likely to break or get clogged.

ive never lived in a house or apt without one. they seem ubiquitous to me. seems weird there wouldnt be one.

Lol what? They are ubiquitous as ever.

Food waste goes to compost!

I've always had one in every place I live. Even the shitty apartment I had one was installed.

Never ever lived in a place with one, and I've lived in probably a dozen places in my life

We have one, I like it. Never gross smelling, keeps the drains clear, seems to help the dishwasher run better.

My house had the cheapest garbage disposal which I quickly broke. When I went to replace it, I found that replacing them is incredibly easy and the mid-tier model (about $120) said it could handle small beef bones and peach pits. I've been very happy with that, and all my food waste goes in. I don't have a lot of room for compost, but the city purports to be generating electricity from the sewage, so I hope it isn't wasted. It also means that my trash doesn't smell, which is nice.

Almost impossible to get a condo in my area without one. I do use a mesh but I know from experience I have to run it once a month or it might rust out or something. Washing machine drains to it to.

I found a solid metal strainer, not mesh for my sink. Holds up forever and much easier to clean. Even if you have a disposal, its not great to just dump everything down the drain [citation needed]. You especially want to catch things like small bones and forks.

The disposals seem common enough, a lot older/outdated homes don't have them. I have no idea what they're putting into new houses and renovations.

Never had an under the sink mess like you describe, maybe yours just had a small leak?

They’re not legal where I live. Something about our sewage lines or treatment center not being able to handle it if I recall correctly. I have a clog resistant drain strainer that I clean out every time I rinse dishes in the sink instead.

Most garbage disposals just cause more trouble that they're worth since they turn small chunks of food into paste and that's more likely to stick to the insides of drains and cause more clogs than the small chunks, as long as your drains are properly maintained. And a halfway decent strainer will keep out the larger pieces. It's also not good for your city drains and makes sewage processing more expensive. Better to use composting for your food scraps if you can.

They seem more common now if anything

I’m not sure what extra cleaning you’re talking about but if you use them once in a while they don’t stink

I worked in apartment maintenance for a bit. That is a requirement for low income housing, at least in California. If it doesn't have one or it stops working for any reason, the tenant can claim unlivable living conditions and not pay rent until it's fixed. This is true for many types of problems but you asked about garbage disposals. Also the property could potentially lose the designation of low income housing which means losing the federal/state subsidy. Most tenants don't know about this and choose to move out instead after a few rent increases. On the other hand there is a list of "problem tenants" that landlords share and if you end up on it then good luck finding a new place to rent.

I used to have one, but everything I'd use it for should really be going in the compost, not the sewer.

My condo has one. I use it.

I had one in most of the apartments I lived in, but I was always having problems with them and needing to contact the landlord to fix it (some of this was my fault but still). Now that I have my own place I'm not going to install one, I don't want to spend money if the result is mostly to get to maintain yet another thing, just to avoid shaking a drain trap over the trash every once in a while.

As a Canadian, the idea of a garbage disposal in a sink has always been insane to me. It can be hard to believe that Americans just grind up stuff and send it down their sink drain.

I have never not had one

Never had one, and can't think of ever having seen one.

I find they're pretty ubiquitous where I'm from. I had one in every apartment I've lived in. I don't have one in my house though.

I know a lot of people will just dump a lot of food waste in there. After struggling with it, I started just throwing out all of the waste and using the garbage disposal for the small bits of food that would normally get caught in the sink strainer.

Now that I'm back to living in a place with no garbage disposal, I do miss it a little. The sink strainer is a bit gross to handle. But it's also pretty nice not having to maintain the garbage disposal so it all evens out.

Currently live in a condo, I think every unit in the building came with one

The biggest advantage I could find is that they are insanely convenient for making French press coffee! French presses are otherwise a pain to clean (since there's no filter to aggegate the grounds), but having an in-sink disposal means I can just flush the coffee grounds directly into the sink. Besides this though I'm pretty indifferent to them

I had one once, here in Australia, in a house my family lived in for a few years. It was novelty as I'd never seen one before or since.I seem to recall thinking it was very useful but for some reason, even though there's really no chance of it happening, I always had like intrusive thoughts of sticking my fingers in there. Also my grandpa stayed with us for a little while and he kept throwing nectarine cores in there which it really couldn't handle even though we asked him not to. It also used to make a deafening noise like the awakening of Cthulhu at rhe best of times, hearing it sound like it was about to spectacularly break was really distressing. I don't know how legal it was to have that thing, they just don't seem to exist here in Australia so it was very odd that this place had it.

It's definitely not necessary. It can be convenient.

It wouldn't be very high on my list of wants, but I'll use one if available.

My problem was not using the thing for long periods of time and it kinda jamming in place. They have a little quarter-inch hex key hole on the underside that you can use with a hex key to get 'em going again if that comes up.