really awful toilet

[learningtoflyasleigh]

First time posting here but any suggestions on cleaning the bit below the water level of a toilet would be gratefully received.

Our downstairs toilet is a bit of a disgrace - it has been revamped except for the acutal toiletbowl bit (as to change this would have involved ripping up concrete, relocating sewage pipes and all sorts of mess and costs) and generally its fine. However as the toilet is fairly ancient it is badly stained in the watery bit.

I have scrubbed and scrubbed to little avail, I have tried cola overnight but it doesnt look any better and still (quite frankly) smells like a gentlemans public toilet. It probably doesnt help we live in a very hardwater area.

Help!

Itl's mst likely a limescale build up. The cleaning products get too diluted by water in bowl. Use an old yoghurt pot or similar to scoop as much water out as possible, then use a descaler. Like what you'd use in your kettle.

Should come up a treat. We had this in a rented house. Toilet was stained brown and i just couldnt clean it. Did this and it was pure white again. Amazing difference. Yucky job but only have to do it once hopefully.

ooh that's a great tip about scooping the water out! I need to do this too in our house, Thanks!

Arm yourself with long rubber gloves, brillopads, denture cleaning tablets and harpic limesacle remover.

Put a good handfull of denture tablets in and leave overnight.

Next morning don't flush, get your gloves on and its hand down the toilet and brillo pad, that should take the 'thick of it' off. Then flush.

Next put the harpic down (you want the one in the black bottle - 100% limescale remover I think it has on).

You need to leave it for 1 hour in order to let it eat through the limescale and for it to kill the germs.

Gloves back on, new brillo pad and scrub scrub scrub. You need to do it with your hands, a loo brush can't get into the nooks and cranies.

Take the toilet seat of reguarly also and clean the threads on the screw bit and that bit of the toilet it sits on - it gets pretty grimey in there as well!

I clean my toilets twice a week with the harpic and a toilet brush, and every night I put 1 denture tablet in each loo, so that it can break down the limescale a bit and stop it building up

pour hot water in from a kettle and drop in half a dozen denture tablets. leave over night. brush and flush. repeat if needed.

You don't need to scoop the water out. If you've got a toilet brush (Toilet Duck Fresh brush thingy works as well) just use that to shove the water back round the U bend. You have to pump it with the brush quite a few times, but it beats scooping it out.

A tip learned on MN a few years ago.

A mop is also good to get the water out. And once you've followe the above advice to shift the build-up, use a mop a couple of times a week t ogive it a good clean under the water line. I have a mop and bucket kept just for that

Thank you! Will try the tips (mil coming for Christmas!) And will report back

surprisingly, if you put Parazone Bleach Blocks in the cistern, thjey will gradually dissolve limescale from the cistern, the pan, and the water channels round the rim. If you are in a hard-water area, clearing the rim will improve the force of the flush. One word of warning though, they make rubber perish, so if your cistern has the supply pipe coming in through the bottom, rather than the side near the top, the washer may need to be replaced or it could drip.

BTW brillo is likely to scratch the porcelain, I'd suggest a nylon pan scourer.

The smell of wee is more likely from the floor round the pan, and possibly underneath the flooring if you have vinyl or something.

I have limestone tiles in my bathroom and have had to be inventive about cleaning wee stains and smells as I can't use any acid based cleaners. I finally got rid of the smell by sprinkling bi-carbonate of soda around the dampened floor and walls near the toilet bowl. Try leaving it for about an hour and then wipe up.

Domestos Limescale remover is ace! Our toilet had an annoying constant drip into the bowl which marked it. It totally disappeared in about 20 minutes. Tis fab.

I am armed with denture tablets tonight! Don't think its the flooring as that's all new in the last few weeks, it definately it coming from the bowl itself. But I am hopeful this will work!

I just use the black bottle Harpic. It works, but do it regularly - once a week at least. Also, the flylady daily swish and swipe really does stop loos from smelling. You can do it with left over bubble bath, doesn't have to be chemical stuff every day, and it does instantly get rid of the smell. Bit sadly obsessed with that one.
If it smells like a men's public toilet then it's probably being um refreshed by the men in your house, and a ten second swish every time you notice the smell should kill it.

I tried tallulah's brush water method to lower the water line. It worked and I was more excited than was decent. Also noticed after draining that those products that claim to stick to the pan under the water line, do actually stick. So needn't have bothered really, but oh, the satisfaction.

Why is everyone worrying about this on Christmas night? Normal people are eating After Eights and weeping over Downton

You can buy harpic power plus tablets - dissolving loo descaler tablets that you drop in and leave overnight. They do work. I think if you persevere over a few weeks, you will finally get rid of the stuff. Little by little and all that.

I sorted out a horrible scummy loo in London following some lazy tenants with the baling out of the loo water and loads and loads of limescale remover. a scrubbing brush and elbow grease. It took a couple of days of almost constant effort to do it though :(

i used two of the harpic power plus tablets overnight in our loo after tenants left - it was vile but cleaned up really nicely afterwards. And wasn't too much effort.