Please help me figure out this smell in my bathroom!

[joraemi]

I have this weird smell in my upstairs bathroom. I don't even know how to describe it except at first whiff it's almost sweet, but then...not so much. It "feels" like a wet smell, but does not remind me of a musty/moldy smell - more like "musky"? For some reason, I have always associated smells with shapes - it smells "round" to me - or like it has smooth edges.  Don't judge.  LOL

 I thought it was just that the toilet needed a serious scrubbing, so I did that - bowl, seat, base, etc - and the toilet is in it's own little room.  But I've been noticing that I also smell it in the shower - it seems to come from up high - I wondered about the fans in the toilet room and the shower?  But then sometimes I think I smell it when I'm near the vanity lights.

It's driving me crazy. It's not a good smell. Anyone experience this or have thoughts or suggestions?

[lady_disdain]

Might it be coming from the pipes?

[Wulfie]

try pouring some bleach down the pipes. You may have mildew in the lines and that is what is causing the smell.

[paintpots]

Sounds like damp to me - if the shower/bath seal has gone, water might be penetrating behind the tiles and going mouldy.

[joraemi]

Who do you think I should cal to check this out?  General contractor?  House inspector? plumber?

[DottyG]

try pouring some bleach down the pipes. You may have mildew in the lines and that is what is causing the smell.

If you do that, be sure to rinse really, really well.  And then add some enzymes down the drain.  The bleach will kill the bad bacteria, but remember that there's also good bacteria in pipes as well.  You need to replace it.  It can be something as simple as a bottle of the stuff you use to treat pet stains on carpets - Nature's Miracle is a good one.

This is an "I learned it first-hand" suggestion.

[doodlemor]

Best of luck with this, joraemi.

We had a weird odor once in a downstairs powder room when company was expected.  A plumber was able to fix it quickly by replacing a valve under the toilet.  It was not a messy or dirty job at all, fortunately, although the toilet did have to be temporarily disconnected.

[RebeccainGA]

It could be, too, the smell of long dead decomp (like, mouse in the ceiling). We had one die in a building at college, and the smell was almost sweet, musty, animal, and a little pungent, all at once, and lingered for a couple of months (as they had no idea where it was to remove it). Have you had any rodent/bird incursions? If they are near the vent fan, the smell could be coming back in.

[joraemi]

It could be, too, the smell of long dead decomp (like, mouse in the ceiling). We had one die in a building at college, and the smell was almost sweet, musty, animal, and a little pungent, all at once, and lingered for a couple of months (as they had no idea where it was to remove it). Have you had any rodent/bird incursions? If they are near the vent fan, the smell could be coming back in.

Hmmm. You know - I did find mouse droppings in the garage this spring for the first time ever.  I suppose I could have DH go up into the attic and check it out. The attic space is right above that bathroom.

[Bijou]

If it is a damp smell I would probably start with a plumber, but that's just my opinion.

[Amara]

Did anyone bring in any scented soaps? (I use unscented everything except that last week I decided to try out one green tea scented one. It seemed a very mild smell so I bought it, unwrapped it and put it in the bathroom. I could not figure out, why later, the bedroom had a sickly sweet smell, almost like a cigar.Odd, because the soap didn't have that same scent, at least not close up. Disgusting! It wasn't until I ran across this in my search that I found it on the counter and took it outside. Yup, the smell disappeared.)

[Dazi]

Well what you describe comes down to wet, dead, or mold.

Pop head in crawl space.  If it's dead something, you should know pretty definitively.  Not sure where or how your tub is set up, but when we were having a similar issue, DH cut a hole in the closet wall that is next to the bathroom.  Some valve or connector type thingie was slow dripping and was causing the damp musky smell.  It's fix involved about $5.00 worth of parts, placing a large fan to dry out the area well for a few days and putting a sheet of drywall back in the closet. He ended up having to rip the whole piece of drywall out to get to the drip and I wasn't taking a chance on mold (at least we already had the extra sheet of drywall).

[Audrey Quest]

Some houses do not have the plumbing vented in the same way as was traditionally done with a pipe that went out through the roof.

These under the sink vents have filters on them that fail after many years.  I have that problem with my kitchen sink and two bathrooms.

Check under the sink to see if you have one of these filtered vents.  If you do you could go to the hardware store and find a new one to pop on there or call a plumber and have him replace all the  ones in your house.

[HappilyInsane]

It could be, too, the smell of long dead decomp (like, mouse in the ceiling). We had one die in a building at college, and the smell was almost sweet, musty, animal, and a little pungent, all at once, and lingered for a couple of months (as they had no idea where it was to remove it). Have you had any rodent/bird incursions? If they are near the vent fan, the smell could be coming back in.

Dead rodents do tend to have a sweet quality to the smell. I would definitely check that attic.

Hmmm. You know - I did find mouse droppings in the garage this spring for the first time ever.  I suppose I could have DH go up into the attic and check it out. The attic space is right above that bathroom.