diff --git a/swiftclient/client.py b/swiftclient/client.py
index 8466cc5b..c0af72a2 100644
--- a/swiftclient/client.py
+++ b/swiftclient/client.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ import warnings
 from distutils.version import StrictVersion
 from requests.exceptions import RequestException, SSLError
 from six.moves import http_client
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import quote as _quote
+from six.moves.urllib.parse import quote as _quote, unquote
 from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse, urlunparse
 from time import sleep, time
 import six
@@ -103,6 +103,36 @@ def http_log(args, kwargs, resp, body):
         log_method("RESP BODY: %s", body)
 
 
+def parse_header_string(data):
+    if six.PY2:
+        if isinstance(data, six.text_type):
+            # Under Python2 requests only returns binary_type, but if we get
+            # some stray text_type input, this should prevent unquote from
+            # interpretting %-encoded data as raw code-points.
+            data = data.encode('utf8')
+        try:
+            unquoted = unquote(data).decode('utf8')
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            try:
+                return data.decode('utf8')
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                return quote(data).decode('utf8')
+    else:
+        if isinstance(data, six.binary_type):
+            # Under Python3 requests only returns text_type and tosses (!) the
+            # rest of the headers. If that ever changes, this should be a sane
+            # approach.
+            try:
+                data = data.decode('ascii')
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                data = quote(data)
+        try:
+            unquoted = unquote(data, errors='strict')
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            return data
+    return unquoted
+
+
 def quote(value, safe='/'):
     """
     Patched version of urllib.quote that encodes utf8 strings before quoting.
@@ -472,6 +502,14 @@ def get_auth(auth_url, user, key, **kwargs):
         return storage_url, token
 
 
+def resp_header_dict(resp):
+    resp_headers = {}
+    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
+        header = parse_header_string(header).lower()
+        resp_headers[header] = parse_header_string(value)
+    return resp_headers
+
+
 def store_response(resp, response_dict):
     """
     store information about an operation into a dict
@@ -482,13 +520,9 @@ def store_response(resp, response_dict):
        status, reason and a dict of lower-cased headers
     """
     if response_dict is not None:
-        resp_headers = {}
-        for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-            resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
-
         response_dict['status'] = resp.status
         response_dict['reason'] = resp.reason
-        response_dict['headers'] = resp_headers
+        response_dict['headers'] = resp_header_dict(resp)
 
 
 def get_account(url, token, marker=None, limit=None, prefix=None,
@@ -545,9 +579,7 @@ def get_account(url, token, marker=None, limit=None, prefix=None,
     body = resp.read()
     http_log(("%s?%s" % (url, qs), method,), {'headers': headers}, resp, body)
 
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     if resp.status < 200 or resp.status >= 300:
         raise ClientException('Account GET failed', http_scheme=parsed.scheme,
                               http_host=conn.host, http_path=parsed.path,
@@ -589,9 +621,7 @@ def head_account(url, token, http_conn=None, service_token=None):
                               http_host=conn.host, http_path=parsed.path,
                               http_status=resp.status, http_reason=resp.reason,
                               http_response_content=body)
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     return resp_headers
 
 
@@ -712,9 +742,7 @@ def get_container(url, token, container, marker=None, limit=None,
                               http_path=cont_path, http_query=qs,
                               http_status=resp.status, http_reason=resp.reason,
                               http_response_content=body)
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     if resp.status == 204:
         return resp_headers, []
     return resp_headers, parse_api_response(resp_headers, body)
@@ -758,9 +786,7 @@ def head_container(url, token, container, http_conn=None, headers=None,
                               http_path=path, http_status=resp.status,
                               http_reason=resp.reason,
                               http_response_content=body)
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     return resp_headers
 
 
@@ -992,9 +1018,7 @@ def head_object(url, token, container, name, http_conn=None,
                               http_host=conn.host, http_path=path,
                               http_status=resp.status, http_reason=resp.reason,
                               http_response_content=body)
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     return resp_headers
 
 
@@ -1224,9 +1248,7 @@ def get_capabilities(http_conn):
                               http_host=conn.host, http_path=parsed.path,
                               http_status=resp.status, http_reason=resp.reason,
                               http_response_content=body)
-    resp_headers = {}
-    for header, value in resp.getheaders():
-        resp_headers[header.lower()] = value
+    resp_headers = resp_header_dict(resp)
     return parse_api_response(resp_headers, body)
 
 
diff --git a/swiftclient/service.py b/swiftclient/service.py
index 4f331c4e..129ca2f9 100644
--- a/swiftclient/service.py
+++ b/swiftclient/service.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ from threading import Thread
 from six import StringIO, text_type
 from six.moves.queue import Queue
 from six.moves.queue import Empty as QueueEmpty
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import quote, unquote
+from six.moves.urllib.parse import quote
 from six import Iterator, string_types
 
 import json
@@ -1861,8 +1861,7 @@ class SwiftService(object):
                 delobjsmap = {}
                 if old_manifest:
                     scontainer, sprefix = old_manifest.split('/', 1)
-                    scontainer = unquote(scontainer)
-                    sprefix = unquote(sprefix).rstrip('/') + '/'
+                    sprefix = sprefix.rstrip('/') + '/'
                     delobjsmap[scontainer] = []
                     for part in self.list(scontainer, {'prefix': sprefix}):
                         if not part["success"]:
@@ -2054,8 +2053,7 @@ class SwiftService(object):
                 dlo_segments_deleted = True
                 segment_pool = self.thread_manager.segment_pool
                 s_container, s_prefix = old_manifest.split('/', 1)
-                s_container = unquote(s_container)
-                s_prefix = unquote(s_prefix).rstrip('/') + '/'
+                s_prefix = s_prefix.rstrip('/') + '/'
 
                 del_segs = []
                 for part in self.list(
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_swiftclient.py b/tests/unit/test_swiftclient.py
index 23b31388..28556295 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_swiftclient.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_swiftclient.py
@@ -130,6 +130,31 @@ class TestHttpHelpers(MockHttpTest):
         value = u'unicode:\xe9\u20ac'
         self.assertEqual('unicode%3A%C3%A9%E2%82%AC', c.quote(value))
 
+    def test_parse_header_string(self):
+        value = b'bytes'
+        self.assertEqual(u'bytes', c.parse_header_string(value))
+        value = u'unicode:\xe9\u20ac'
+        self.assertEqual(u'unicode:\xe9\u20ac', c.parse_header_string(value))
+        value = 'native%20string'
+        self.assertEqual(u'native string', c.parse_header_string(value))
+
+        value = b'encoded%20bytes%E2%82%AC'
+        self.assertEqual(u'encoded bytes\u20ac', c.parse_header_string(value))
+        value = 'encoded%20unicode%E2%82%AC'
+        self.assertEqual(u'encoded unicode\u20ac',
+                         c.parse_header_string(value))
+
+        value = b'bad%20bytes%ff%E2%82%AC'
+        self.assertEqual(u'bad%20bytes%ff%E2%82%AC',
+                         c.parse_header_string(value))
+        value = u'bad%20unicode%ff\u20ac'
+        self.assertEqual(u'bad%20unicode%ff\u20ac',
+                         c.parse_header_string(value))
+
+        value = b'really%20bad\xffbytes'
+        self.assertEqual(u'really%2520bad%FFbytes',
+                         c.parse_header_string(value))
+
     def test_http_connection(self):
         url = 'http://www.test.com'
         _junk, conn = c.http_connection(url)
@@ -686,6 +711,18 @@ class TestGetObject(MockHttpTest):
             }),
         ])
 
+    def test_response_headers(self):
+        c.http_connection = self.fake_http_connection(
+            200, headers={'X-Utf-8-Header': b't%c3%a9st',
+                          'X-Non-Utf-8-Header': b'%ff',
+                          'X-Binary-Header': b'\xff'})
+        conn = c.http_connection('http://www.test.com')
+        headers, data = c.get_object('url_is_irrelevant', 'TOKEN',
+                                     'container', 'object', http_conn=conn)
+        self.assertEqual(u't\xe9st', headers.get('x-utf-8-header', ''))
+        self.assertEqual(u'%ff', headers.get('x-non-utf-8-header', ''))
+        self.assertEqual(u'%FF', headers.get('x-binary-header', ''))
+
     def test_chunk_size_read_method(self):
         conn = c.Connection('http://auth.url/', 'some_user', 'some_key')
         with mock.patch('swiftclient.client.get_auth_1_0') as mock_get_auth:
diff --git a/tests/unit/utils.py b/tests/unit/utils.py
index ac9aefdb..a9759eb3 100644
--- a/tests/unit/utils.py
+++ b/tests/unit/utils.py
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ def fake_http_connect(*code_iter, **kwargs):
         def getheaders(self):
             if self.headers:
                 return self.headers.items()
-            headers = {'content-length': len(self.body),
+            headers = {'content-length': str(len(self.body)),
                        'content-type': 'x-application/test',
                        'x-timestamp': self.timestamp,
                        'last-modified': self.timestamp,
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ def fake_http_connect(*code_iter, **kwargs):
                        'etag':
                        self.etag or '"%s"' % EMPTY_ETAG,
                        'x-works': 'yes',
-                       'x-account-container-count': 12345}
+                       'x-account-container-count': '12345'}
             if not self.timestamp:
                 del headers['x-timestamp']
             try: