to give up trying to clean this toilet?!

[iamdivergent]

Moved into first house a little over a year ago. House had been empty for about a year prior to us buying it, so obviously water had been turned off until we switched it back on.

Upstairs bathroom suite is grey. The toilet was disgusting, soon as you lifted the encrusted lid you could have cried at the smell, god knows how we didn't notice it when we viewed but who looks down the loo then!

So, since then I have tried many, many different method to clean it but there's some on the bottom of the bowl which I just can't shift no matter how I go at it. It's very annoying and looks gross obviously.

Still grrr that the seller's didn't think to clean the loos before the put it on the market!

So AIBU to give up on it?!?!?!

The porcelain might crack.

Get thee down to home bargains lidl or Aldi - they do overnight toilet cleaner tablets. They are the work of gods ! A box is about 99p for 15 - lob two down when you go to bed, wake up, quick scrub (and I mean quick) and flush - taa daa !

Pumice stone will help scrub off stuck-on discoloured limescale as well, or Barkeeper's friend and a green scourer. BF also gets the stains off the underside of the seats.

you also might want to replace the seat, or if it is a matching one and not actually broken, take it off and soak all the hinges and fittings in bleach.

Boiling water might crack a toilet I guess. Would be annoying if it did.

seat was replaced the day we moved in

You can buy acid wash from janitor supply type shops. Soak the water out of the bowl with a towel so it is dry, pour in acid wash and leave 24 hours. Flush. Deposit then flakes off in lumps with a sharp tool.

We had a similar problem. In the end we removed some of the water in the bowel and then used harpic 100% limescale remover plus a lot of scrubbing. That seemed to work.

We used Kilrock heavy duty descaler on a horrible toilet and it worked really well.

Harpic do overnight toilet tablets, however you need to scrub the crud off, the best way to do that is with a butter knife.

Vinegar vinegar vinegar.

I got this tip from MN and have never looked back:

Empty the bowl of water completely by scooping then mopping with an old towel.

Spray the dry surface with vinegar (the cheap stuff used for pickling is good).

Leave overnight.

Voilà ! Clean loo without the environmental damage.

Our toilet was a bit yucky when we moved in and the bleach with limescale remover did the trick ! Soaked overnight a few times and lots of scrubbing with a toilet brush.

No no no, you are all over complicating this!

Buy a litre of vinegar from Tesco for 99p.

Empty water from toilet.

Pour the whole lot of vinegar down, and leave overnight (pref 48 hours)

Flush. Chip huge chunks of limescale off with a knife. You will need to bin the big bits, they are like shards of glass!

Best. Fun. Ever.

Empty water out totally

Pour vinegar in leave to sock.

Chip big lumps of limescale off.

Empty water out totally and repeat as often as needed might take a couple of goes.

Alternatively any acid product will do the same thing but vinegar is CHEAP!

My DF always recommended Spirits of Salts and would turn up at our new but mucky houses with some plus goggles and decent rubber gloves. Effective but not nice stuff.

Second the sports of salts.

It's AMAZING.

Yourselves a new sparkly toilet pretty quickly.

Vinegar didn't work when we tried it on the toilets of the house we bought. It may be an acid but it's quite weak.

I think that "spirit of salts" is just hydrochloric acid. It will obviously work but you would need to be very very careful.

Harpic power plus. Miracle stuff (trust me, I have IBS, my toilet cleaner needs to be damn good!)

Vinegar is normally OK, but with toilets like this, you need strong, chemical stuff! (Harpic, Cillit Bang, etc, limescale removing stuff).

Can't beat Harpic IMHO - we inherited a similarly awful loo (maroon ) from previous inhabitants and was the only thing that worked.

(Loo lasted about 2 years before we replaced the bathroom suite, inc the massive round bath and bidet )

see, harpic all the way. The 2 clean system is bloody marvellous

HG limescale remover (careful it will take the chrome off your taps after 10 minutes) and a dish brush. Treat overnight, use the scrapey side of the brush to chip all the loose off. Repeat following night if needed. The important thing is, whatever you do, you chip it off. Because there is a lot nothing will dissolve it totally but it will loosen it. If you don't chip it will just weld back on.

HG products are fantastic for most jobs.

I am slightly

Thank you for all your help and suggestions

Spirit of salts is caustic soda. It will work but be EXTREMELY careful.

Caustic soda, never to be confused with soda crystals.

I once worked in a janitorial suppliers, we sold a product called vanisol (don't know if its still available), it was powerful stuff and and very very strong (gloves and masks required).

Call your local janitorial suppliers and ask what they can recommend.

Or try Domestos Zero lime scale remover.

Robert dyas do spirit of salts, it's really good. I use Mr muscle toilet limescale to keep it at bay