Why does our loo smell of wee all the time?

[AntoinetteCosway]

It is cleaned regularly. It is bleached. There is no wee mat. The floor around it is cleaned regularly too. So why whenever I lift the lid is there a revolting public urinal smell?!

Do you have floorboards under your flooring?

You have a leak somewhere.

UGH. Yes, we have floorboards under the flooring. Oh yuck. Assuming there is a leak and it gets fixed, how do you clean wee soaked floorboards?

Any thing which will neutralise the smell, maybe bicarbonate of soda. Don't use disinfectants as that can make the smell change but you need a neutraliser brushing it in to the floorboards. Does your flooring go all the way under the toilet or is it cut around the toilet?

Antoinette - I had this problem in a flat I rented, I got a deck scrubber (long handled brush, very dense short bristles) and scrubbed daily with neat bleach for a week. Pong gone.

Could also be old urine around the seals of the lid, if it is only when you lift the lid then it probably isn't the floor. If you have boys then they can spray a lot of wee around and this can get under the screws etc that hold the lid on. I would take the lid off, scrub and soak the whole lot in the bath, scrub the loo where the seat was and then replace. If you have a wooden seat it may just be the seat itself needs replacing.

steam cleaners are great for this job !

Do you have a wooden seat? Our seat is wood and has been weed on by small children so much that it's now impregnated with wee . I'm waiting till they grow up a bit before getting a new one...

In my defence, this is the upstairs loo, which no-one except our family uses - the downstairs one is ok .

The floorboards are cut away around the loo. I'll try taking off the lid entirely and scrubbing that first, then if that doesn't work I'll go for the floorboards! It's a plastic loo seat so I don't think the wee is ingrained in it but it could be in the hinges-I hadn't thought of that.

I don't have sons yet (pregnant with a little wee sprayer at the moment!) but I do have a DH who has been known to not bother turning the light on in there at night...to be fair to him, he usually sits down if it's dark though!

Could be the drains too. Have you lifted the drain covers outside to check no blockage?

This is why I have a house rule for male members of the family - sit down wees only

Maybe what you are using to do the cleaning is what is making it smell of wee. Why not try a new type of cleaning product?