How to tell a roommate they reek?

Is there a proper protocol for telling a roommate that they stink? I know it sounds rude, but I'm really not sure what to do any more. We all know or will run into people who have a pungent body odor, but what we (the other clean[er] roommates) are having to deal with goes way beyond that. We're not merely talking about a small aura of smell that follows the roommate around, no. We're talking about a swinging vortex of putrid filth that is emanating from his room and taking over the house.

It's usually pretty bad inside his room, but we're also usually able to avoid it by simply not entering his room. Apparently the filth atoms formed together to create compound filth molecules or something, because stench is no longer contained to his room. When I woke up this morning, it was pouring down rain outside so I walked into the kitchen to grab a trash bag to protect my computer monitor as I carried it to my car. As soon as I rounded the corner into the kitchen, I was hit by a wave of stench. So bad that I stopped dead in my tracks and uttered a few obscenities to myself. I drove to work in a complete daze wondering how he manages to live with smelling like that. I thought about it for a while and realized that he doesn't shower every day. I'm honestly not even sure how often he showers, or if he showers at all for that matter.

Which brings us to the title and ultimate point of this post. How can I sit him down, without offending him, and tell him he needs to fix whatever it is that is causing this smell. If it was just affecting him, I'd just let him be. The problem is that it's effecting the house. I've had four different friend comment on the smell of the house and that was before the level it reached this morning. I seriously want to get all the roommates together and sit this guy down for an intervention. It is absolutely disgusting. It's made even worse by the fact that it spills into the kitchen. I simply cannot handle having to smell that funk when I'm trying to cook dinner.

Someone please help me out. If you have any suggestions at all for how to handle this situation with tact, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm honestly at my whit's end here.

posted by Christopher Schnese