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?

@nannymags

you could try a washable pillow protector.

I use two pillowcases on it. the pillow protectors I’ve found all seem to have a plasticky type feel to them.

@nannymags

I would also try an experiment , put him in a another room for week or so, see if that makes difference

Good idea!

Is there a chance it is not coming from your son? Dead rat behind the wall for example?

Can you change his sheets and air our his room on a day when he won't be home till late, then go in at night and see if it smells when he's asleep?

Yes, that’s likely to be weeks away but I will add it to my list.

@whatisheupto

Is there a chance it is not coming from your son? Dead rat behind the wall for example?

I don’t think so. When I cleaned it last weekend the smell was completely gone for two whole days. Then when he was back, it was back.

It's just the lovely smell of teen spirt, kind of a cross between stale cheeseburgers and humid dampness?
It will pass when he moves out. Sorry. Teenagers are just lovely 😂

I just asked my teenage Dd.
She said, 'oh he's probably got a load of wank socks stuffed somewhere'

Is he reacting to something in his shower gel?
Introduce him to a range of smellies called lynx——— you’ll be glad to get back to the smell of teenager.

I'm really sorry to suggest this but blokes living on their own do seem to exude a smell. It may be hormones, I don't know but they just do.

Maybe if he drank more water it would dilute it. I'd say it must be due to a) hormones and b) diet, both affecting his body odour.

@IHaveBrilloHair

I just asked my teenage Dd. She said, 'oh he's probably got a load of wank socks stuffed somewhere'

If he does he has them extremely well hidden because I went through every square inch of his room last weekend (and he didn’t know I would be doing it!) and there wasn’t anything. I literally took every item of clothing from his drawers and wardrobe, cleaned inside and out of both units, moved them to the other side of the room, cleaned the floor and skirting under them, did the same with his bed and desk too, everything was taken out of everything. Nothing unpleasant was discovered.

Ill let her know!
It was tongue in cheek btw, teenage girls also have disgusting bedrooms that stink.
Basically teenagers are gross.

@IHaveBrilloHair

Ill let her know! It was tongue in cheek btw, teenage girls also have disgusting bedrooms that stink. Basically teenagers are gross.

I’m glad to hear it isn’t just boys. I don’t remember being stinky as a teen. I’ll have to ask my mum but she absolutely would have told me at the time.

Does he use shower gel, because bar soap is more effective, imo. My hormones are all over the place. Not because I'm a teenage boy, but a peri menopausal woman, and bar soap's really made a difference.

Yes shower gel. I use bar soap and had him using it for a while but he complained that he didn’t feel as clean with it and wanted to have shower gel again. I’ll present the soap idea again and hopefully he’ll consider it.

Fish Odour Syndrome?

Ohh Gawd, not read all the replies but flashback to teenage bro's bedroom - right stink, no one knew what the hell it was until a clear out and it was a tub of fish bait stashed under his bed, and forgotten about, bloody bluebottles galore on opening lol

@Quaagars

Ohh Gawd, not read all the replies but flashback to teenage bro's bedroom - right stink, no one knew what the hell it was until a clear out and it was a tub of fish bait stashed under his bed, and forgotten about, bloody bluebottles galore on opening lol

🤮

I think I’d have vomited!

Fish Odour Syndrome?

No it’s not a fishy smell.

Has he any skin condition? Hub has psoriasis and occasionally it'll flare up around his groin and it can be smelly, hotter weather particularly when its humid really bothers him. He has medicated cream for it and it works but the steroids in it means he then doesn't sleep.

I think its the milk. Especially if he drinks a lot of it.

Some people who sweat a lot, and who eat spicy foods, as in Indian curry's. and especially garlic things, find that the sweat can emit the garlicky smell from the body.

Could it be his mattress? Has he spilt a drink on it that’s took a while to dry out and is a bit moldy smelling now, especially when it’s had a warm person sleeping on it?

Could you try parking a few dishes of baking soda around his room? It's really good at keeping fridges from smelling like smelly fridge, maybe it could help here. And also the diet changes--iirc brassicas also make people smell sometimes. And for goodness' sake he needs to strip his bed and open a window at night, ugh!

Pretty sure he's spending most afternoons having a wank. Don't most teenage boys do that?

Is his bed up against a wall? We sugarsoaped my 15 yo boys wall and that helped a lot with the grot smell....