Shared toilet trouble - funny, but not funny.

[paulears]

This is a serious post. Trouble is you will all s******, but it's really unpleasant.
My office and video studio is on the ground floor. Above me, accessed from stairs that go up from the lobby from the external door is a salon. You walk through the outside door and the door on the left is my office - the stairs straight ahead through another door and to the right two loos. One is mine, the other is the salons, and recently renovated and quite posh.

The snag is that one of the two people upstairs clearly has some kind of dietary, or metabolic condition that means the smell leaks under my door, wrinkles the carpet and stains the paint. Well, not quite, but it is disgusting. I tend to leave the outside door open - to get the foul air out, but it's also making the office cold.

In their loo there is a 13A power point, oddly on my distribution board. I have put one of those air freshener gizmos but despite this going full tilt, the lady upstairs (I initially assumed it was the fella) frightens the scent from coming out.

There's not really an option for extraction, so I'm looking for something that can cancel the smell rather than overpower it with scent. Has anyone found any sort of 'cancellation' device that works. I've looked at the type that has a small can of pressurised scent but these things always smell like lavatories. My options at the moment are God awful 'natural' smells or the scorch you throat chemical masking solutions. There must be something better? I guess opening the outside door might just be simplest - but maybe there is some better kind of smell reducer.

 

[DontAsk]

You could provide one of the essential oil smell blocks. You spray them in the loo before doing a number 2 and it forms a barrier on the surface.

Could be UC or Crohn's or the like. I know what it's can smell like from a close family member. A sympathetic approach may be needed.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Maybe not the complete answer but perfumed toilet blocks in the cistern may help?

This reminds me of a chap at my first place of work., a supermarket. Towards the end of the lunch break he'd finish a chapter of his book whilst on the throne, completely oblivious to the fact that 2 fire doors, a 30 ft corridor, a set of stairs and another door were insufficient to defend customers on the shop floor and staff canteen from indescribable odours. In those days it was possible for the manager to talk to him very directly but would likely be a major HR issue now?

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Paul, have you contacted a Plummer to check the UBend is not leaking so your getting feed back from the sewage pipe either from the toilet or the wash basin overflow hole

 

[clyde123]

I would try Neutradol.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

What does your business plan say and have you talked to your account about this

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I think the obvious question is have you spoken to them about it?

 

[Gecko001]

Paul, have you contacted a Plummer to check the UBend is not leaking so your getting feed back from the sewage pipe either from the toilet or the wash basin overflow hole

Yes, the problem appears to be a blockage/leaking sewage, somewhere.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Yes, the problem appears to be a blockage/leaking sewage, somewhere.

The OP suggests it's one of two people so unless one party waits until they get home?

 

[paulears]

100% human, not plumbing. The two staff upstairs are quite difficult to communicate with - I do their monthly meter reads and I now do this via messenger, because the language barrier makes direct communication tricky. Actually the fella's english is good, but the person causing the problem is petite, pretty and impossible to understand - so being able to talk about her toilet smells is out for quite a few reasons.

I got a 'pop in the cistern' device today, and a different type of plug in - but now everywhere smells of air freshener and that creeps under the door too. The cubicle is just the wrong size to fit even a 100mm extractor - the toilet itself is in the way below the window and above the low level cistern is a double glazed window. This does actually open, but in the winter, the North sea blasts in, and in the summer, we get the smells from the pizza takeaway next door. The landlord is the pizza place - and there's no chance of him funding anything. His solution would be leave the door open. In fairness, that might just have to be the solution - but if I go to the post office and back, the smell when I unlock the outside door just makes me heave!

Neutradol - I will investigate.

 

[Newchodge]

Febreze is supposed to eliminate smells rather than mask them, The do a 'flip it' and the advert seems to suggest it ill do what you want.

To be fair, if you don't want the 'natural' smell you will have to put up with some kind of air freshener smell.

 

[paulears]

Febreze is supposed to eliminate smells rather than mask them,

As a money person, you might like this side story. Part of what I do is manage shows - big ones with millions at the box office. I am the most senior production company representative on site, so I look after technical kit and crew, plus the cast and of course costume. When the cast come off at the end of the show - many of the costumes and underwear are sort of peeled off, soaking - especially if they're heavy fabric.

By next day, they're washed, cleaned and ironed by the wardrobe people. Some clothes cannot be washed and dried though, and dry cleaning is impossible with the time frame, so after a while, they pong. Fabreeze works really well ........ for a while, but then the bacteria start to win, and drastic steps get taken. Vodka in a garden spray is the solution then - and the alcohol kills bacteria.

Whenever we get a new person in the London based finance office, I know - because I get a strange message asking why I am buying bottles of vodka out of the petty cash - quite a few by the end of the run.

I came in late today - and the smell of fuschia is everywhere - the nasty smell either gone or at least masked, but it's still unpleasant.

 

[Ozzy]

Some clothes cannot be washed and dried though, and dry cleaning is impossible with the time frame, so after a while, they pong.

You will never appreciate how grateful I am that I read this after I'd finished my lunch.

 

[paulears]

You will never appreciate how grateful I am that I read this after I'd finished my lunch.

I always remember that in one production, somebody went off sick. This is the worst thing that I have to deal with - we have understudies (called swings often now). So the big names have dedicated cast members who know their roles. Wardrobe then have to take in-let out costumes so they fit the replacement. Not a quick or easy process, but we do NOT have identical costumes, unless a person's shape is crazily different - they're too expensive. So we cure the immediate problem, but the cover also had things to do, so their role gets swapped arround with others, so person C is doing part of person B's job because they are doing person A's role. Sometimes you get to the end, and feel smug, only for somebody to then say - er, who is the back end of the elephant. The elephant that has a person sitting on top! They look amazingly realistic and on the inside, lots of foam, straps and padding. We even have a term for this - skin work. Skin work being written into contracts, usually with the "no additional compensation for skin work" - there really should be, because it usually means you are inside, wearing elephant feet legs, in a T-shirt. The foam inside will be minging - the sweat you lose inside in the afternoon still being there in the evening. It stinks. Fabreze refuses to come out of the spray after a few days, so squirting vodka around makes it wetter, but a little less stinking. I have lost count of the times when as the boss, I am the rear end of an elephant, or a headless horseman. A fifteen minute scene in Cinderella might, years ago, have mean a skinny member of the stage crew being shut inside a clock, ready to pull the cable that makes the hands go to midnight! Numerous times, they have fell asleep. Wardrobe are the unsung heros - what other job requires you to collect up sweat soaked bras and pants discarded in the wings during quick changes, plus the things the fellas wear to keep their dangly bits less dangly. It's even worse because common sense says you pick them up wearing rubber gloves, but that actually looks bad to the person who just took them off! Spare a moment to think about the rear end of a pantimime horse, where one person's head is very close to ........ fill the rest in yourself. when I was younger, I was hidden inside a huge voluminous old fashioned floor length skirt for a gag where the pattern looked like two big eyes at the front, and I kept moving them as things happened on stage. The actress in the skirt clearly not doing it. We became very good friends. Sometimes showbiz is not as glamorous as it looks!

 

[tony84]

Get a new office. Easy to deal with.

Where my new office is, there is a bloke who seems to like to go for a dump and probably nowhere near your level but it gives the hall way its own aroma.

My Mrs came down to the office. I bumped into her in the hall way as I was about to make a brew and in true northern style... "WHOSE ARSE IS THAT!!!".

The walls in the offices are mostly partitions so obviously not the thickest.
No more 10am smells.

If you need to borrow her for an hour im happy to get rid of her.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

I always remember that in one production, somebody went off sick. This is the worst thing that I have to deal with - we have understudies (called swings often now). So the big names have dedicated cast members who know their roles. Wardrobe then have to take in-let out costumes so they fit the replacement. Not a quick or easy process, but we do NOT have identical costumes, unless a person's shape is crazily different - they're too expensive. So we cure the immediate problem, but the cover also had things to do, so their role gets swapped arround with others, so person C is doing part of person B's job because they are doing person A's role. Sometimes you get to the end, and feel smug, only for somebody to then say - er, who is the back end of the elephant. The elephant that has a person sitting on top! They look amazingly realistic and on the inside, lots of foam, straps and padding. We even have a term for this - skin work. Skin work being written into contracts, usually with the "no additional compensation for skin work" - there really should be, because it usually means you are inside, wearing elephant feet legs, in a T-shirt. The foam inside will be minging - the sweat you lose inside in the afternoon still being there in the evening. It stinks. Fabreze refuses to come out of the spray after a few days, so squirting vodka around makes it wetter, but a little less stinking. I have lost count of the times when as the boss, I am the rear end of an elephant, or a headless horseman. A fifteen minute scene in Cinderella might, years ago, have mean a skinny member of the stage crew being shut inside a clock, ready to pull the cable that makes the hands go to midnight! Numerous times, they have fell asleep. Wardrobe are the unsung heros - what other job requires you to collect up sweat soaked bras and pants discarded in the wings during quick changes, plus the things the fellas wear to keep their dangly bits less dangly. It's even worse because common sense says you pick them up wearing rubber gloves, but that actually looks bad to the person who just took them off! Spare a moment to think about the rear end of a pantimime horse, where one person's head is very close to ........ fill the rest in yourself. when I was younger, I was hidden inside a huge voluminous old fashioned floor length skirt for a gag where the pattern looked like two big eyes at the front, and I kept moving them as things happened on stage. The actress in the skirt clearly not doing it. We became very good friends. Sometimes showbiz is not as glamorous as it looks!

A slight distraction on the theme but with a showbiz is not as glamourous as it looks twist. A mate of mine, an electrician was thrilled to get a job with one of the leading Formula 1 teams, travelling around the world setting up and making sure all the electric sockets etc., were in place. He'd arrive at the track a week before the race, leave before it started, head to the venue for the next race, leave before it started and return to the first one to disassemble. Didn't even see a car :>)

 

[lmkeller14]

This is a serious post. Trouble is you will all s******, but it's really unpleasant.
My office and video studio is on the ground floor. Above me, accessed from stairs that go up from the lobby from the external door is a salon. You walk through the outside door and the door on the left is my office - the stairs straight ahead through another door and to the right two loos. One is mine, the other is the salons, and recently renovated and quite posh.

The snag is that one of the two people upstairs clearly has some kind of dietary, or metabolic condition that means the smell leaks under my door, wrinkles the carpet and stains the paint. Well, not quite, but it is disgusting. I tend to leave the outside door open - to get the foul air out, but it's also making the office cold.

In their loo there is a 13A power point, oddly on my distribution board. I have put one of those air freshener gizmos but despite this going full tilt, the lady upstairs (I initially assumed it was the fella) frightens the scent from coming out.

There's not really an option for extraction, so I'm looking for something that can cancel the smell rather than overpower it with scent. Has anyone found any sort of 'cancellation' device that works. I've looked at the type that has a small can of pressurised scent but these things always smell like lavatories. My options at the moment are God awful 'natural' smells or the scorch you throat chemical masking solutions. There must be something better? I guess opening the outside door might just be simplest - but maybe there is some better kind of smell reducer.

Zinc ricinoleate based products are worth looking into for this specific situation because they actually trap and neutralize odor molecules chemically rather than masking them with fragrance, and there are commercial odor neutralizer sprays built around this ingredient that genuinely cancel the smell rather than just adding another layer on top of it which sounds exactly like what you need here.