Please help me pinpoint the source of the smell in my teenage son's bedroom

[Smallsteps88]

I know plenty of you have raised teenagers so I’m hoping some of you will know what this is.

He’s 15. Showers every day including washing hair. Brushes his teeth once a day at least, twice if he remembers in the morning. He uses roll on deodorant daily. He spends his days barefoot and the shoes he wears out of the house are kept downstairs. His clothes are washed daily. He has a laundry basket that they stay in and it is emptied every evening. There are no dirty pants/socks/anything lurking in his room because I completely stripped the room bare last weekend, moved all furniture, washed absolutely everything, including his mattress, all surfaces, bed linen, curtains. The whole lot. He doesn’t wear pyjamas and the offending smell does transfer to his bedsheets. So it’s coming off his body but I just don’t know how! He is washed every day. It is a bodily smell but doesn’t smell like BO. It is horrible though and his room is small and gets warm and stuffy so the smell is strong. His window and curtains are open for a few hours a day. I would have them open all day but he spends a lot of time in his room and likes to close them. The smell is from him but if I sniff him he doesn’t smell. If he leaves his bedroom door open the smell comes through the house.

Please help. I feel awful constantly reminding him to open his windows and asking to sniff his hair to see if it’s clean but we really need to get to the bottom of this. The smell is really horrible.

Can anyone shed any light and/or recommend some products he/we can use to combat this?

It’s hormonal, they all have it, and they grow out of it. Seriously, I raised 3! That’s why they like Lynx etc so much!

Feet, farts, trainers. Also once found a pint glass of urine under the bed, couldn’t be arsed to get up.

My son never needed to use tissues, he had his 'special' sock. Try looking for a rather stiff sock.........

My son had a musky smell coming from his bedroom and it was caused by Lynx body spray, awful musky smell that has completely gone since I stopped him using it.

When my stepson lived at home we had a similar problem in that there was an unidentifiable but unpleasantly stale smell in his room that we just couldn't identify. We repainted walls, washed carpet, changed mattress, you name it...turned out that we had a tiny, tiny gas leak from the central heating system that was "pooling" in his room; nothing at all to do with teenage habits or lack of hygiene. May I suggest you check your gas supply, as in our case the smell was not at all gassy!

Does he have an IKEA wardrobe? We had one a few years ago that started to really smell bad. Had to throw it out.

Everyone has their own “smell”.
They did some studies and those who are genetically linked don’t like each other’s smell, but those who have no link do. It’s natures way of ensuring a good gene mix.

Does he have a gaming chair? My boy does and I can smell a weird smell in his room even though it’s constantly cleaned. I’m convinced it’s from sitting on the leather with shorts/boxers on.

Ds has this, its a musty, hormonal smell and very potent. I remember my brothers room smelling the same. Not a dirty smell at all but very sharp on the old nostrils......

Dp thinks its just me as he can't smell it.

It's just boy. It lasts a couple of years and then goes away. Mine are are 17 and 20 now and the smell has gone but a couple years ago it was rank.

Have you a mattress protector on his mattress? If not I'd suggest getting one, ideally a waterproof one. If he is Sweating excessively at night it will destroy his mattress. You would also see the sweat stains on it if he was. What's his diet like? Would he eat spicy foods? Does he drink enough water? All these things can lead to an odour. Does anyone else (particularly female) notice it? If it's something you are really concerned about speak to a gp about it. But I wouldn't keep badgering him about it either in case it would make him feel unnecessarily self conscious. Best of luck

My eldest son was/is exactly the same!!
We got new carpets in all bedrooms which helped for a (very) short time.
He's 23 now and its getting better, slowly!
Everyone has a personal smell and the bedroom is the place it will be strongest. I think puberty makes it more pungent for some.

Head sweat? Vinegar smell?

I have to say my sons radiator leaked last heard to the point some things under it were proper mouldy. We blamed the smell on him accusing him of hoarding damp towels etc for over a month.

I think it comes with the age group, I have 2 in that stage currently.

Just to add for those of you panicking I have 2 other sons and they didnt have that issue so you might get lucky with yours

Could it be you? Not the source of the smell but your hormones? When I was pregnant I couldn’t bear the smell of dh or a man in my office. Are your periods changing or stopping. Based on no medical experience or knowledge whatsoever I just wonder If this is a hormonal reaction from you and whether it could be changed in any way from you.

Also has anyone suggested a dab of canesten in the belly button a few times a day for a week?

This thread has brought back very, very clear memories of the boys' floors in my halls at university. Open the fire doors, step through and walk straight into a wall of boy stench that could make you gasp (no, please don't gasp, you don't want to inhale at all if you can help it). It didn't seem to bother the boys but all socialising happened on the girls' floors.

If he doesn't wear socks, I would hazard a guess it's his feet.

Get some good quality soap with tea tree oil in it. Check on ETSY or something for some handmade soap, which is very frothy. It makes a huge difference to the bacteria etc that can sit on the skin.

Also, not just a roll on deodorant, but a spray one as well might help.

Mitchum deodorants are good.

From experience, this smell you are talking about is purely hormones. Some boys/men have a really strong hormone smell. Nothing to do with not being clean at all. I have two sons with total opposites of hormone smell strengths. Even now, years past teenager years, if one of my sons stays over for whatever reason, the box room smells like someone has died. The smell goes away after 20 minutes once the door has been opened. If I'm downstairs in the morning I know when he has got up out of bed, because I can smell the room. Not much we can do about hormone smell. Apart from keeping the bedding clean, and always opening the window and door when he's not in the room we can't alter someones DNA, so you can't change hormone stench!

@ClaryFairchild oh god. don't encourage a teen to use aerosols.
apart from being really really bad for lungs, the house will stink of lynx forever.

I read somewhere -possibly MN that teenage boys smell bad to their mums and sisters to repel them

Interesting. I always thought my brother's room stank. Then again, he was a grotty bugger and used to piss in bottles in his room, go months without washing his sheets, and smoke weed without even opening the window. My poor mother.

The problem may be that the temperatures we use for our washing don't kill bacteria. If you can get bedding that can go on a 90° wash and be dried outside in the sun, you may solve the problem. This was the solution to a lingering smelly bedding problem from from the family pooch.