I noticed a strong urine smell in our downstairs bathroom about 2 weeks ago and can't get rid of it. My parents came to visit for a week and I thought that my dad may have had some urine drop on the floor since he has some incontinence issues, but they left 2 weeks ago and even after multiple cleanings some days the smell even seems stronger than before and I don't know why. We (my husband, daughters and I) rarely use this bathroom and we've cleaned and disinfected the toilet and floor with bleach and a multi-surface cleaner 4 times in the past 2 weeks and still can't get rid of the smell. Is it possible that the smell is coming from inside the pipes or inside the toilet itself where we can't reach??
Added: If it is in the pipes is there anything we can do ourselves to get rid of the smell or do we need a plumber to do something?
I will guarantee It is the walls.. and maybe behind the toilet..
Wash them down.
Some men spray.. I do not know if it is their height, or what, but it is gross.
I would get out a cleaning brush and scrub the base. You can't really clean it without actually removing the toilet but that should get most of the pee that went under the toilet.
Look at the bottom of the toilet and see if there is a seal of caulking at the base. If there isn't, what probably happened is that urine seeped under the toilet. Take a paper towel and "slip it" underneath to try to sop it up.
If you can't get rid of the smell, you may have to get a plumber to come in and pull the toilet up and redo it. He will also check the wax ring inside the bottom of the toilet to make sure that it hasn't opened up.
If indeed not having a caulking seal around the toilet is the problem, talk to the plumber about the pros and cons of using a seal. There actually ARE pros and cons about it... smiles!
Dawn
It probably is collecting underneath your toilet, out of reach. That happened to us and my husband had to take our toilet up and replace the wax ring. You wouldn't BELIEVE the nastiness that I found under there! Gag!
It sounds like your toilet's wax seal needs to be replaced. This is a relatively easy (albeit not pleasant) fix.
http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/bath/fixt_repair/toile...
Have you washed the nearby cabinets? When we had our basement finished the contractor used the main floor bathroom and it started to REEK. I scrubbed and scrubbed every evening, because my "bionic sense of smell" (as my husband describes it) would smell it down the hall as it wafted its way into the kitchen. UGH. It was the cabinets. He peed on our cabinets. They were almost two feet from the toilet. Longest summer...ever!
Could someone have accidentally peed on a wall or somewhere you wouldn't normally clean?
I was going to mention the toilet seat screws too. My toilet seat has screws covered by little snap-on lids. I had to tighten the seat one day so I lifted the lids and errrrrrgh. The smell was unbelievable. Little boy syndrome - his pee was getting under those lids and I never thought to clean under there.
I had been noticing the faint odor of urine for weeks. That solved it.
I agree with the advice that the toilet's wax seal may need replacing. We just had to do this in our bathroom. The seal had broken and water/urine was leaking in to the floor under the toilet. Luckily we caught it before any damage happened to the subfloor.
Often urine will leak around the base where the flooring and the toilet meet up. That is where I find the urine smell is coming from. So I'd say that you might want to check that area. Boys tend to splash a bit even on a good day.
f you haven't already, take the toilet seat off and make sure the screws aren't caked with urine. We had to clean that regularly when our son was potty training.
We had the constant pee smell too. ( Yes we have a boy, but we hadn't really noticed any more issues with aim.) We tried all the cleaners, including a spray to clean up pet urine. And nothing seemed to work for any amount of time. Baking soda and vinegar worked best, but that in itself was a messy process. (Sprinkle baking soda, add water, scrub the paste on the floor. Let it sit a few minutes, then finish with vinegar. It foams up. Then you clean up that mess. Hubby said since that seemed to work, it must be getting where we don't see it. Then in desperation, I scrubbed walls, baseboards, etc. When I pulled up the caulk around the toilet, we found the problem. The pee was not only in the caulk but under it. We couldn't tell with the lighting in that room until we removed the caulk. We removed the caulking, did the baking soda and vinegar trick...a few times, in case we missed anything. Then recaulked the toilet. Viola. No more pee smell.
At our rental property the seal under the toilet was going bad at that caused a constant urine smell too.
I would suggest using a black light to find any unseen urine.
Also, I use a mixture of 1/2 hydrogen peroxide and 1/2 water and it removes odors (supposedly what hospitals use, but I don't know if that's a fact).
Urine often gets underneath the toilet where it connects to the floor. Try spraying this area heavily.
IF you need to take the toilet off and reset the wax seal and recalk it - you wouldn't necessarily need to hire that done.
My husbands done it himself a few times (for various reasons).
It's not that big of a job for someone who can follow basic plumbing directions.
I had a similar issue in our main bathroom, AND we had a leak at the base of the toilet, so my husband pulled it up, put in a new seal, cleaned the heck out of the tile then recalked it back on.
Does this bathroom have a shower too? Our downstairs bathroom has a shower that we NEVER use - not even once in the 4 yrs we have lived here - I store mops and buckets and stuff in it. BUT, if I don't run the shower on occasion, it starts to smell funny (by funny I mean gross). The water just needs to flush through the pipes then my problem is solved.
Have you had any little boys over lately? Mine have been known to pee in the vents >:- /
Ditto Mallory. Any little boys visit you? We once had a strong urine smell in our downstairs bath. We cleaned it all and still couldn't get rid of the smell. Then, my husband discovered the source: Our son had peed in the trash can. Boys think it's fun spraying pee in places other than the toilet. :)
Yep it sounds like it could be the pipes. I would also try putting some stuff in the sink drain too. Good luck.
Also, did you check the shower??
The wax ring under your toilet may need replacing. This happened to me. If you have laminate flooring, the water can even seep under there and make the smell stick.
I would give the bathroom a once over with an enzyme pet urine odor remover like Anti Icky Poo or Nature's Miracle. I would also wash any towels, washcloths, etc. My SS for some reason can take a shower and the towel smells so bad it could knock down a horse. HE smells OK but the towel - we have no idea. We wash that baby on hot with vinegar.
I would also consider a odor eater like FreshWave or Citrus Magic and if the smell persists, check for things like the pipes or a leak in the wall. I hope nobody peed in your vents. Ew.
I was cleaing the bowl and all over the outside and the dust off the back under the tank when i wiped in a spot i never wiped before! where the lid to the toilet is there is a ledge connecxting to the tank. wipe under that ledge...idk how these boys got it way back there but it was...and i cleaned the other toliet right in the same spot...it wanst as bad but it was there!!!
