urine smell in bathroom won't go away
i’m freaking out a bit. we’ve just moved into our new brownstone after doing some cosmetic renovations for the past several months and there is a fairly strong urine-y smell coming from the toilet area in the kids bathroom that just won’t quit. there is also a 4 inch shallow hole behind the toilet where…
i’m freaking out a bit. we’ve just moved into our new brownstone after doing some cosmetic renovations for the past several months and there is a fairly strong urine-y smell coming from the toilet area in the kids bathroom that just won’t quit. there is also a 4 inch shallow hole behind the toilet where with the pipes, where the previous owners must have done some repair work, but never closed it back up again. my fear is that the kids before ours regularly peed in the hole either on purpose or accidentally, making me wonder how the smell can be dealt with. we’ve had professional cleaners come over, and i’ve scrubbed the tiles/walls at least 10 times with every cleaner out there and it’s still there. can we blow some kind of foam in there to seal it? will the smell ever go away? i’m ready to rip out the entire bathroom and just start over, but, of course, would rather not…what can i do?
odorxit works wonders. i just used it to clean up a concrete basement that had been used by a poor dog that was regularly locked in the house.
Anon 7:11 is probably right– it’s not the toilet or the hole behind it. It’s your floor material. I have the same probably in my old brownstone, and can’t wait to re-do. Do you have linoleum, tile, wood, or god forbid, carpeting? Boys/men pee all over the place, and if it’s not cleaned really well, eventually it’s gonna stink. Nasty. The old bastard who lived in my house evidently sprayed all over the place for 36 years. Get the flooor tiled, and be SURE to apply a sealer to the grout!
If the bathroom has a tile floor that was there before you moved in, there is a great chance that the smell is comming from the cement that’s under the tile.
We have found this problem often in Boy’s bathrooms in Public schools.
The urine is soaked up by the cement and it smells for halh of forever
You can try saturating the floor with bleech. If that does’nt work, you’ll have to dig out the tile and install a new tile floor.
Make sure the vent pipes behind the wall does not have any holes in it. Or is properly connected. If your bathroom had work done to it I would not be surprised if some goofy thing like that is happening.
If your place is gonna smell like urine, better it stinks up the bathroom than the kitchen! Just a thought…
If there’s no evidence of a leak, remove the toilet, completely seal all the holes, and reinstall the toilet. If it’s an old toilet, I’d change it. Sometimes old toilets have tiny leaks you can’t see and it’s easy and cheap to replace toilets.
If there’s still a smell, you need to open up the ceiling below or an adjacent wall and look for a leak, but most likely it won’t come to that since currently you see no visual evidence of a leak.
I’ve been managing buildings for years and that’s my advice.
Takes a LOOONG time for urine smells to go away. The previous owners of my house had a dog and it still smelled four months after they moved out.
But yes, try the pet product – you can get at Petco – worked for me.
Also could it be the toilet itself? Maybe when it flushes it doesn’t completely refresh the water? Just a thought.
Im going with 9:54…
I’m no expert in urine..but it sounds as though any smell that keeps going and going is continuously being “reinvigorated” over and over again..otherwise the smell would eventually subside…
the danger here is if you do have a leak and simply plug the hole..it will eventually cause heavy bacterial issues not to mention heavy mold damage over time…and of course the smell..
I have a house trained dog that cannot always go out..and even with his occasional mistakes..the smell goes away..even if for some reason it is uncleaned..(eary training=hidden pee spots)..no longer an issue..
but in any case…I would get behind that wall..check out the drain pipe below the toilet(professionally) and get to the source of the problem..instead of simply looking for coverings..
good luck..
PS Easy way out use the link above..or use a pet based product…
Are the pipes from the toilet sloped downward? if they have inadequate pitch, it is possible that not all of the urine is being drained. The same is true if the flusher is not powerful enough or defective in some way.