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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/FreedmanX on 2026-05-06 11:29:00+00:00.

Obligatory this happened yesterday, and my apartment still smells like I made a bad decision in every room.

For context, I live in a small apartment and for the last few days there has been this weird sewer smell coming from somewhere near the bathroom. Not constant, but it would hit randomly and then fade. I thought maybe the trash was the problem, so I took it out. Then I cleaned the sink. Then I cleaned the toilet. Still sewer.

Instead of being a normal adult and calling maintenance, I decided I could handle it.

My first idea was air freshener. Didn’t work. It just made the bathroom smell like “spring meadow” laid over a public restroom.

Then I sprayed some perfume because my logic was apparently “expensive smell beats bad smell.” It did not. Now it smelled like a sewer pipe got ready for a date.

Then I remembered I had some lemon cleaning spray under the sink, so I sprayed that around the bathroom too. At this point I had sewer smell, fake flowers, perfume, and lemon all fighting for dominance in one tiny room.

My Fuck Up

I kept adding smells instead of finding the source.

After about twenty minutes, the whole apartment smelled worse than before. Not just bad, but thick. Like I could taste it. I opened the windows, turned on a fan, and sat in my bedroom questioning my entire education.

Eventually my neighbor came over because the smell had somehow drifted into the hallway. I had to explain that no, nothing died in my apartment, I just tried to solve plumbing with perfume.

Maintenance came this morning and found the actual issue. The bathroom floor drain was dry, so sewer gas was coming up through it. The guy poured water into the drain and told me to do that occasionally if I don’t use it much.

That was it. Water. The answer was water.

TL;DR: Tried to cover a sewer smell with air freshener, perfume, and lemon cleaner instead of calling maintenance. Made my apartment smell much worse, annoyed my neighbor, and found out the fix was pouring water into a dry floor drain.

Also, for future reference, how are you actually supposed to deal with sewer smell before turning your bathroom into a chemical fruit swamp?