Ok this is so gross, but I can't take it anymore!!! Our downstairs toilet STINKS!!!! I clean it ALL the time. Just now I cleaned it again and it STILL stinks!! I scrubbed the inside and used Clorox toilet cleaner, wiped the entire outside with Clorox wipes, sprayed the inside of the bowl with Lysol, and cleaned the sink too. It's a half bath, with just a toilet and a pedestal sink. There are wood floors in there, as is the rest of the downstairs. (Except the kitchen is tile). It ONLY stinks in that one room, and none of the other bathrooms smell that way. It smells like sewage. I put a clorox tab in the tank AND I have one of those freshener tabs that clips on to the inside of the toilet bowl. I smell the bleach from the clorox tab, and I can smell the lavender scent from the bowl tab, but I STILL smell the nasty sewage/poop smell! Ugh! It is grossing me out! We have lived in this house for 3 years. The house (and I'm assuming the toilet is too) is 15 years old. I'm pretty sure the 2 toilets upstairs are the same age, and they don't stink! Not even a little bit! It has stunk since the day we moved in, but never this badly! It is becoming unbearable! We are on city water/sewage, so it couldn't be our septic system...the other 2 toilets smell fine anyways! It's so bad that I can smell it when I walk past that bathroom. What could it be?? Any ideas? Thanks! :)
ETA: We replaced the toilet because Hubby wanted an oblong instead of round. It's been less than 24 hours, but already I know the problem is solved!! Ahhhhhh :) So much better!!!!! Yay!!!
Aww man! 8kidsdad, I was actually hoping you'd comment & have the answer! ;D Thanks so much for commenting, and a big thank you to all who gave your ideas! That toilet is our most used toilet :/ i smelled the sink, actually put my nose right on the drain and i dont think thats where the smell is coming from....the wood floors are sealed, so I don't think it could be that. My husband thinks the wax ring needs to be replaced. We will probably just go ahead and get a new toilet...ugh :( Did not want to spend $ on that, so I wanted to get lots of opinions/ideas before going down that road! But I think we'll have to! It's almost to the point where I just want to shut the door & go all the way upstairs to use one of the other bathrooms! :D
Sounds like it's time to pull the toilet and clean everything out and replace the ring that keeps the toilet in place.
My guess is two versions of the same thing, one gross, and one yikes:
- Urine soaked into the wood from above
- Sewage underneath the wood
- mold in the walls or subfloor (not necessarilly toxic) ((yikes))
- side sewer backing up (gross)
Even polysealed wood is not seamless. Urine soaks down between the joins (one reason why wood is almost never used in bathrooms, it's impossible to seal it, the second, of course, is wet rot from humidity and water and urine getting between the cracks).
If you have any kind of leak UNDER the floor the entire subfloor can be caked/soaked with sewage OR home to any of a dozen species of mold (on a few toxic, but they all smell like rotting nastiness + acids / aka most smell like sewage). The smell will naturally rise, and as you walk across the floor it will increase the smell by increasing the air flow.
I would personally pull up a board that runs by the back of the toilet (or along the edge) to make sure you don't have any major structural problems starting. Early on, it can be pretty easy/cheap to fix (fix the leak, replace the subfloor or drywall). Later, wetrot and dryrot and can get into supporting beams... which is ghastly expensive to repair. Ditto molds can run the entire length of your walls and floors which means stripping the entire floor, or entire house down to it's studs and rebuilding. Also ghastly expensive.
If you're still noticing the smell, that means you haven't acclimated to it yet. In a few years, when your entire house smells like that... you won't even know it because your nose won't recognize the smell.
We were in a rental that had mold in the walls from a leaking pipe. Turned out to be toxic mold. Nightmare of a problem, because the landlords weren't willing to spend $100 making sure the smell from the bathroom wasn't what we were afraid it was. Toxic mold (which we had) doesn't smell like "mold", btw. It smells acrid. When we were there (we paid for the testing of the whole house) only the bathroom was affected. 2 years later, the entire house had mold in the walls, and the floor beams were rotting.
While this is a worst case scenario, it's happened to us, so I just wanted to make sure you knew to yank up a board!
If it's your side sewer backing up, you've probably got a few weeks to a few months before your bathtub, sinks, and toilets all start overflowing with sewage. It's $80 to rent an electic pipesnake from Home Depot (we do it twice a year, TINY side sewer pipe grandfathered in with our 100 yo house). If we don't snake it, it will back up and overflow all over the house. Grossness. All you need are throw away gloves and the snake. Hiring it done in our area is about $800-$1000
We have the same issue. The toilet the kids use is very smelly. Just picked up new wax ring today and plan on taking the toilet out tomorrow and cleaning under it. Also check your floor under the toilet for damage. I don't see why you would need a new toilet, just a new wax ring.
check the seal around the base of the toilet, if it's cracked - smells will get out..
Also, 8kidsdad, is right - it could be the trap - while the "U" shaped portion in the back of the toilet is supposed to keep smells out - it's possible that it is clogged...
Have you tried plunging the toilet?
It could be your septic if it's in the bottom level of the house...
if the ideas here don't help- then i would call a plumber and have them check it out...
GOOD LUCK!!!
Its the trap. After a while the while the water in the trap evaporates and the sewer gas can come in the house. Pour a gallon of water down the sink, and shower and flush the toilet once per month and you'll never have to smell it again.
My dad owned a RotoRooter franchise and he went on service calls to do this on a regular basis, especially in homes where there were empty nesters and the "other" bathroom was seldom used.
Good luck to you and yours.
Do you have boys? They miss you know, it soaks into wood ya know?
Have your husband, or you, remove the toilet. You will need a new wax ring to do this. Once it is off clean the heck out of the wood under the toilet. I would suggest sealing it after you put the toilet back.
Ohhh since you moved in, did they have boys?
I was going to say the same thing as 8kidsdad. I bet the smell is actually coming from the sink because you never use that bathroom.
I would bite the bullet and call a plumber . . . (a good one not a shyster).
use a LOT of vinegar in the tank...then if all else fails either call the plumber or just get a new toilet. It is probably waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper to just buy the new toilet and intall it yourselves than it would be to even have a plumber out to check things.
We where having this same problem in our up stairs bathroom and I finally could not take it anymore so we called a plumber and it was the drain in the sink wasn't venting right so he put a new vent in the sink and it no longer stinks.
Look under the rim in the front. And around the bolts at the bottom.
Is this toilet used a lot? If not, you should still flush it every day.
Yikes, maybe you need a plumberr to give you advice as to possible backups in the pipes? It's not coming from the flooring is it? Seems like you would know though because anything that would make the floor stink that bad would also make it look bad or warped....
