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?

If there is an issue with his scalp being smelly, a coal tar shampoo will also help.

Teenage boys in a small environment smell horrible. Unless he has a sneaky place for the tissuejust spray him with environmentally unfriendly sprays feel for you x

🤣🤣🤣pmsl that smell is called teenage lad in a bedroom bashing over pornhub

So we made some changes yesterday -took his duvet off and he slept with just a sheet on top- he was happy with this as he says he is too hot at night- showered before bed, I bought him antibacterial bar soap to use and told him I’d bought him new stuff, but somehow he managed to wash himself with my clay face wash I’ve set him straight on that one! Used tea tree shampoo, used Mitchum deodorant. and the smell is very reduced today but still present. Not anywhere near as bad though. He was supposed to try sleeping with his window open but forgot. And he was supposed to have his window open all day, but also forgot. Will remind him again tomorrow. I’ve also ordered him all new bedding, duvet and pillow. Am going to have to save for a mattress. He’s definitely not hiding dirty clothes anywhere, the whole wardrobe was emptied and washed when I cleaned his room last weekend. The only dirty washing in his room now is the stuff that he is wearing.

I have one of these. I reckon it's the mattress.

That's probably washed weekly too

If he won't sleep with window open what about a fan? Might keep him cool enough that he won't sweat.

Perhaps try an air purifier in his room.

Both good ideas, thanks.

It's probably just a combo of night sweating and hormones.

I have a similar issue with my teenager DD and she is also very clean but her new carpet is being delivered next week as some of the problem stems from that. Underlay is being changed also.

You say that he does not smell but the smell isn’t coming from his room. Has there been a milk spillage on his carpet because that smell is truly awful and really hard to get rid of

The pp suggestion of a dead mouse or rat behind a wall is a possibility.

It could be from what he's eating .. garlic etc, being a teen seems to amplify everything in weird ways

My about to turn 18 teenage boy's room smells horrendous.
Sometimes you can actually smell it from downstairs. Unfortunately they are all spending a lot more time in their rooms due to school closure and lockdown.
I think 95% of it is due to what I would delicately put as self entertainment.
Despite changing sheets and duvets and
despite a very good waterproof mattress protector,it seems to still seep into the mattress .Baking soda treatment and neutradol helps .
But a continuing battle ,and considering all that they have lost this year ,we pick our battles and only intervene when necessary.
Now doing all own laundry so not actually having to deal with the sheets oneself helps.
Dettol laundry cleaner for everything teenage related.
Looking forward to it disappearing with maturity as everyone says :)

I think it's hormones! My 18 year old son's room also mostly smells like dead arseholes. It's best not to question why

it is testosterone....I swear

two DS and a DD and both the boys rooms reeked ...we called it BoyZoo. ...making more of an effort to 60 wash all boy clothes and line dry if possible helps!

I also notice it to a much lesser extent when dh is on nights, esp if he has the window shut when he is sleeping in the day, and he turns the bedding yellow...I also blame that on testosterone!

Stinking Ychromosomes! ...someone should do research.

Do you have black out material on your curtains?
My room smells and I put it down to a smelly other half!! But when it's really sunny (we have a east facing room) it smells more and put it down to what the blackout lining is made off.
I lady I used to work for did the same as you, cleared and cleaned and it was concluded it was the blackout material

He does have blackout curtains! I’ll have to go and give them a good sniff.

Take all bedding of the bed and sprinkle (Sieve) the whole mattress with bread soda and some essential oils (lavender and lemon are excellent) leave on for at least an hour, longer if you can and vacuum off. Mattress should smell good after and it removes dust mites etc. do this at least once a month. Use a paste of vinegar and bread soda to remove any stains first, rub in well and remove excess and you can add the dry mixture over this to dry out the mattress after, if you don’t want the vinegar smell lingering. I had to do this after my partners 26 year old nephew stayed over for 3 weeks (turned out he was a bed wetter and on drugs) 😡

Check under his bed,he may have a wank sock there

Does he actually WASH? My son (he's 9) showers daily or has a bath (trying to get the habit formed while he's moderately pliable!) but his idea of a shower or bath is standing under the water/lying in the water but has to be nagged to actually use products!!

I know its terrible to say but the replies to this thread have got me crying with laughter. I can totally relate as have two smelly teens xx

Have you sniffed the neck of his dressing gown? That's another potential culprit.

If it is him/teenage sebum production/things growing in his body oil (yellow stains on the quilt/pillow), then Hibiscrub is really good at starting him off from scratch again.

I had to use it prior to going into hospital and gave it to DD when she started the dodgy teenager smell (I blame the dodgy teenaged boyfriend at the time, as she didn't stink before he appeared on the scene, and had never had more than a single spot but matched him for acne within 3 months, so I'm sure there was some bacterial and fungal spore exchange going on). within less than a week, the smell had gone, much to the relief of my younger daughter who had to share a bedroom with her.

I wouldn't recommend he uses it to deal with smeg, though. It can be a little stingy at first.

Happy

It’s the lovely smell of huge amounts of testosterone. My boys rooms used to smell awful in the morning and always had a strong musty smell despite showering and room cleaning. A few years ago I visited a friend who quite happily informed me her DH was “having problems”, as she put it. She then told me he was having regular testosterone shots to sort it out and the proceeded to take me upstairs and opened the door to his bedroom (didn’t ask why they were in separate rooms..tmi)..and then said ..”smell it, it’s just like a teenage boys room uurgghh”. She was right! It had that same musty odour my boys room had. It’s obviously perfectly normal, and I’m pleased to say disappears When they reach their 20s.