Sheeeeeet! How do I clean this loo?

[GravityGoesSouth]

We have a bathroom upstairs that we never use. Only guests use it if they stay overnight (which hasn't happened in months).
Anyway, I went in there this morning and found the loo bowl a dark brown, at and below the water line. It stays like that when I flush the loo.
What could it be?
And more importantly, how should I best clean it? It can't be limescale as I didn't think limescale goes that dark. Did someone just not flush the loo after they'd done a pee and now it's stained the sides of the bowl?

As WhatALump said - Spirits of Salt - the toughest shit you can buy, get it off Amazon, DO NOT SPILL IT (ruined my steel sink) and leave the room to air.

Curious try coke or denture tab first

Thanks for the suggestion and also the pumice tip (and reassurance)!

DD moved into a flat with the filthiest loo I have ever seen the rest wasn't much better despite having allegedly been professionally cleaned
I used four Harpic tablets (the black box ones) overnight plus poured the liquid version down the loo everytime it was flushed during the day and scrubbed it each night and morning. It took two nights and three days but was absolutely sparkling at the end (as was the rest of the flat!)

3 litre bottle of full fat ”rola-cola”. Pour it on and leave overnight at least.

I live in a hard water area and I find Lidl’s w5 limescale remover really good. I tip loads in the bowl and leave for an hour. The harpic tablets are good too.

It's probably just staining from the water standing in it - limescale and other minerals. It it was wee/poo it would easily clean off with a bit of bleach.
I'd work my way through the tips on here until you get a clean loo - the coke tip is true. It's very good at removing stains from porcelain.

Spirit of salts.

Its basically pure hydrochloric acid. It will shift anything.
Do not breath it in! Open the windows after!
You can get it in homebase or Robert dyas or whatever hardware shop.

When DS went off to university he left his loo like this

I had to resort to emptying the bowl and chiselling it off with a bent kilt pin. That enabled me to get round the bend as well

Definitely lime scale 100% I've cleaned lot's of loos like this. If your toilet has not been flushed regularly then resadue sticks to the bottom. It's so easy to remove. You could leave harpic overnight like almost all of the bottle and must be left on overnight. Bleach works the same must be left on overnight. It works 100%

It's probably stained limescale. The limescale would have already been there but not so visible as it's white. The question is what stained it? It could be something innocuous like they poured a cold cup of coffee in the loo before bringing the cup down or it could be that the loo didn't flush properly so something was further down the pipe and it has seeped back up, staining the limescale.

I would bleach it to kill any bacteria growing there. That might also bleach the brown colour a bit if you leave it overnight. Then you need to tackle the limescale. Make sure you flush a few times to get rid of any bleach so you aren't mixing chemicals. Then scoop the water out so any product you use isn't diluted and use something for limescale like the Harpic black. It will probably take a few applications and some elbow grease... If that doesn't work, you can try things like Coke, white vinegar and baking soda, then on to stronger chemicals if that doesn't work.

Once it’s cleared make sure it gets flushed once a week.

What's the progress on the loo @GravityGoesSouth ? give us an analysis:

Methods and photos .

Vinegar and bicarb aficionados: use one or the other. Mixing the two, while very effective for school projects about volcanoes, just produces sodium acetate, which is an interesting and useful chemical but not much use for cleaning.

I had this. Tried everything mentioned here. In the end I had to put my hand down and scrape it off with a round tipped knife 🤢

Keep us updated!

Bleach first.

Bottle of coke tipped in overnight and flushed away in the morning.

Box of citric acid from Wilco (about £1.50) - tip the whole lot in and leave for as long as possible. Scrub if necessary

@soberfabulous should there be a next time try a magic sponge! I used to use a teaspoon to scrape, but was gobsmacked at how much of a grip the magic sponge gets on the limescale! Buy the cheap ones, it's bloody amazing!

Reading me back sounds like I am a total sloven - all those filthy loos. But we live in an area of horrid staining... and we used to rent! Honest!

I’ve heard a pumice stone works! www.soakology.co.uk/how-to-bathroom/how-clean-is-your-bathroom-a-step-by-step-cleaning-guide-from-aggie-mackenzie/

Good lord . Get rid and buy a new loo. That looks evil 😂😂

I dealt with a loo just like this a couple of weeks ago. It was limescale that had become stained I think because it doesn't get used much so not regularly having new water flushed through. Anyway cola just stained it worse. None of the commercial limescale product did anything.

What cleared it was scooping out as much water as possible then chucking in about 700ml of distilled malt vinegar, leaving it for most of the day then scrubbing hard with a (dreaded) toilet brush. I can still see a bit just where the pipe bends round that I couldn't reach and was still under water. Rest of it is sparkling clean though.

You need to update us op!

I had this. Agree with PP that said is stained limescale.

I used Parazone descaling tablets (2) over a couple of nights. This dissolved and loosened much of the layer. The rest I had to very gently hammer/scrape off with a metal pick as it was hard. It comes off like shell. Came off fine in the end.