What's the smell?

Question

I live in an apartment...I'm harldy home to cook...so I do dishes maybe twice a week...so when I run the water to hot water...there's this smell of mildew coming from the drain. What's this fom? I poured a small amount a bleach down the drain and it worked for about a week. What else can I do? Is this a maitenence issue?

Answer 1

You need to run fresh water daily...not much...the water is evaporating and allowing the smell and mold to build and escape.

Answer 2

I think the smell come from some of your left-overs went down to the drain. May be you always flush your dish after using before washing. The small amount of water was not enough to flush down completely whatever went into the drain. Therefore at the time you wash your dish after several days, hot water hit the mildewed stuff and the smell came up from the drain.

Answer 3

I've had this problem too but I am home a little more. I read somewhere to run cold water down the drain for a minute, pour some bleach let that sit a minute or two then run some hot water down for a about two minutes. It worked for my smell and mine was mainly in the bathroom sink.

Answer 4

Well, you might try putting some baking soda down the drain. Do you have a garbage disposal? Sometimes trapped food in a disposal will make a bad smell. If not, then I would call the apaprtment manager and tell them about the problem.

Answer 5

Yes, call maintenance, and you might want to try once a week putting baking soda down the drain to help kill the mildew smell.

Answer 6

Probably the standing water in the trap under the sink. Run some water every day to flush it out.

Answer 7

standing water in the trap under the sink. Run water daily

Answer 8

if your not using the sink much then the p-trap is probably drying out and letting the smell in the pipe if you think bout it before you leave or just run some water in there to keep it from drying out.

Answer 9

You probably need your drains rodded out

Answer 10

pour a bottle of drano down there