Smelly Toilet Area

anotheruser

We have a downstairs toilet, bath and sink.

It's not used much as it's just the guest one.

Recently I've noticed a bad smell from the hallway. The bathroom itself smells okay, more so since I stuck a toilet duck gel thing on the side of the bowl.

The room was used frequently up about 5 months ago. Then we had some guests about 2 months ago for a few days. Largly unused, apart from the odd few days use. The smell has only appeared in the last 3/4 days.

Previous to this, the OH forgot to flush - the smell was awful. But flushed and I thought the smell would go but no.

I put half a bottle of disinfectant down the toilet and left it for a bit. Then flushed.
Filled the sink and drained that.
Quarter filled the bath and drained that.

All drain fine.

There is a drain cover outside which I'll investigate but as everything drains okay then I don't think it's particularly a blockage.

Is there something else I can do/use to purge the smell?
Thinking a whole bottle of bleach and leave it overnight.

Maybe fill the bath and let it drain, as at the same time as the sink and flush the toilet to give it a good blast through?

Doozergirl

Has it gone at the moment?

The water in the traps can evaporate if you don't use them and you end up with sewer smells.

knightstyle

Have you tried lifting the toilet and looking under it? We had a similar problem years ago, grandson would occasionally "miss" and the pee accumulated under the pan, it would smell every time the floor was washed.
Lifted the pan, cleaned thoroughly and ran a bead of silicone round the pan to stop future problems.
Smells from the sewers should not come back into the room as long as there is water in the toilet pan and in the S bends of the sink and bath.

anotheruser

Well, it's day 4 of being able to notice it a fair bit.

The area we notice it more is about 2m away from the actual room.

The floor there is concrete though so I wouldn't expect any pipes will run there.

edgex

Do a deep clean;
remove everything you can from the room & clean items thoroughly with bleach
clean everything everywhere in the room with bleach

Carpet in the hallway outside? Clean that as well

[Deleted User]

My downstairs loo frequently gets a horrid sewer smell despite bleaching drains daily etc. I use Neutradol Gel Air fresheners which goes some way to stop it.

Belenus

anotheruser wrote: »

Well, it's day 4 of being able to notice it a fair bit.

The area we notice it more is about 2m away from the actual room.

The floor there is concrete though so I wouldn't expect any pipes will run there.

Don't rely on that.

I had an extension built where the builders ran a 15mm copper pipe to supply a garden tap within a concrete floor.

After about ten years a leak appeared as the concrete had attacked the poorly protected copper pipe. It probably would have been fine if they had put the copper pipe inside a slightly larger diameter plastic sleeve pipe but all they did was wrap a thin layer of insulation around the copper pipe.

A few years later we had another leak as they had also run a cold water mains pipe supplying the kitchen sink within concrete.

I suppose a thicker diameter waste pipe is less likely to be buried in concrete but it is a possibility.

anotheruser

So, the saga continues.

Did a deep clean with the steam mop, bleach and disinfectant. Ran tha taps for about 5/10 mins and half filled the bath. All seems in good order.

The OH had a bath yesterday too so traps should be full.
I wonder if it'll take a while for the smell to disappear though.
We gave the carpet a good fabreezing.

We closed the door to the bathroom and the one to the guest room yesterday.

Opened the door to the guest room and the smell was evident again.
Ooened the door to the bathroom and it's quite a smorgasbord of perfum, so I should think this is somewhere under the carpet now!

The drain for the bathroom is only a metre from the back door so I'm gonna lift that tomorrow and see if there's anything that's fallen in and rotting away (unlikely).

I'll report back.

I'm just glad it's not absolutely terrible.

knightstyle

Just another thought, there was a batch of paint a while ago which gave off a pee smell!

Fire_Fox

Use a proper drain cleaner: pound shop stuff works fine for me. Disinfectant kills bacteria/ mould but does not remove what they are feeding on.

Kentish_Dave

We’ve a shower that is very rarely used. If the trap dries out it stinks, and I wonder if this could have happened with your bath.