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?

Could it be a fungal infection somewhere? That smells awful. Also it’s not great that he can go all day without brushing his teeth. He must have bad breath. I’m surprised at all the comments here about boys smelling. I haven’t noticed that really. Mustier sheets than girls I’ll give you that. But not just a small. I hope you get to the bottom of it if you catch my drift.

Is it the teenage boy hamster smell?

Boys smell. I don’t have anything constructive to add, sorry.
That said, I really loathe walking down a hotel corridor in the morning - that ‘unwashed’ smell emanating from rooms and sheets that have literally only been slept on for a night. Bleurgh. It makes me really paranoid what my house must smell like 😳

I had three older brothers and the boy smell in our house when they opened their bedroom doors in the morning was vomit inducing. They all showered often and didn't smell. No idea when they stopped smelling as they all left home for uni.

I was reminded of the smell recently when one of ds's friends was in the car, it wasnt BO more of a warm, slightly off, mince smell.

Thankfully ds doesn't whiff like that. Yet!

@Cissyandflora

Could it be a fungal infection somewhere? That smells awful. Also it’s not great that he can go all day without brushing his teeth. He must have bad breath. I’m surprised at all the comments here about boys smelling. I haven’t noticed that really. Mustier sheets than girls I’ll give you that. But not just a small. I hope you get to the bottom of it if you catch my drift.

I agree, it's likely his breath, particularly if he drinks a lot of milk and is lax with oral hygiene.

Is it kind of a (bear with me) musty, musky almost horse stably sort of smell? If so I think it’s hormonal and it really lingers, I don’t think it’s hygiene, they literally sweat it out.

@DerbyshireGirly

Is it the teenage boy hamster smell?

Yes! That’s what I was trying to describe!

Farts, feet and the death of childhood. The smell is... unique.

My nephew was like this. DS bought a fresh air humidifier for his room.

It'd just hormones. I used to teach single sex classes for 3 hour double lessons. After 3 hours of 17 year old boys in a room it smelled like an old gym sock. That said, 3 hours of the girls smelt worse tmi alert - old periods masked by cheap bodyspray.
Agree with PP. Air him out regulalry and it will pass as he grows up.

It sounds like he could be sweating lots during the night? My OH gets really hot during the night even with windows permanently wide open and changing bedding all the time. It’s a musty kind of smell, but also I sometimes refer it to a vinegar smell..

Before I go to change the sheets I can smell it before I even walk up the stairs and enter our room. He’s very clean in himself and doesn’t smell during the day it’s purely a night thing.

Might be his sleep breath

“The death of childhood”

I love that
Another one here subscribing to the ‘hormone repellent to mother theory’

My DS smelt bad from 14 to 16 then it just went away, no change in habits or anything.

I just can't look at my toddler at the moment, thinking he is going to grow up and smell like manly love socks

Is it the hamster cage smell? My boys share a room and I call it the hamster pit of doom. Thankfully it goes within half an hour of airing the room but the are younger.

I know it’s tough, but be really careful about making him feel overly aware that you find an aspect of him unacceptable. It’s very frustrating I appreciate, but be aware of his need for privacy and agency. If he genuinely doesn’t know the reason and he’s complying with all your hygiene advice then you might be doing everything there is to do.

My ds's room smells the same, it's the hamster cage smell. My younger brothers room used to smell the same. Also my classroom smells like it (especially after year 8 or 9) it's definitely hormonal, as he too smells clean and has good personal hygiene. We went into a shop recently that smelt the same, ds couldn't smell it but my mum my dd and I all could.

For a long time it was difficult going past my son's room and actually going in there required fortitude. The smell was a piquant cross between sweat and fruity foot thrush. We did everything you have done: scrubbed every surface, washed the sheets frequently, aired the room, put up a list of hygiene requirements for him to follow. He was a fairly messy kid then, but one day when he was about seventeen he just decided to be tidier. He cleaned up his mess, threw out everything extraneous, and lived life like a monk. And his room-scent disappeared too.

Id say mixture of farts and bad breath...

Could it be a dead mouse under the floor boards? I am serious because this happened in a flat share I once lived in. We all blamed one housemate's socks which he'd left lying around. It became a humorous battle of wills when he refused to move them for a few days, when he finally did the smell was still there and the source was eventually discovered.

Ugh this reminds me of my brothers room when he was a teenager. It stank.

I have 2 DSes and am dreading the arrival of The Smell . My nearly 9 year old doesn't smell yet except at the end of a hot and sweaty day. My 6 year old get very hot and sweaty at night but the smell quickly goes in the morning.

DH on the other hand...very hot and sweaty at night cos he wraps himself up in the duvet even during a heatwave. Doesn't smell at all during the day once he's had a shower.

Have you smelt his mattress?

My sons room smells of his disgusting farts. I don’t know what he is eating to cause the stench.
I swear the smell is stuck to his walls, no amount of leaving the window open helps. He just thinks it’s funny.

Also, make him use bar soap. Shower gel doesn’t get you properly clean.