We have two bathrooms sharing the same plumbing lines. Swamp gas smells come and go, sometimes both bathrooms have it at the same time, sometimes not. We live in a highrise building. In the past, the smell comes because adjacent units are vacant and the pipes dry out. The smell used to go away when building maintenance flushed the systems in adjacent units. We're now noticing that the smell isn't just related to this issue. Even with building maintenance flushing the systems, we're getting the smells and they're getting worse. We've noticed that the smell gets worse when we use our UNVENTED washer/dryer that seems to be connected via the same plumbing system. Just for clarity, the smell still occurs even when we're not using the washer/dryer, but it definitely occurs each time we use the washer/dryer.

Help!! We live in NYC where it usually costs about $200 for someone to walk through the door. We want an idea of what the problem might be so we don't get scammed.

So appreciate your help.

with the washer drain hose in the standpipe, stuff some damp rag around the opening so no smell can come back out that pipe. see if that helps ??

Do you have other possible odor entry points, like a bathroom ceiling vented exhaust, air conditioning condensate water drain line that goes outside your living space, large openings around drain pipes under the sink that run into adjacent apartments, etc? If they connected the a/c condensate lines together on adjacent units and your line has a trap that has gone dry over the winter you might have odors coming in that way.

Another idea is to place damp towels around the base of the toilet in case the odors are coming in thru a bad toilet seal. Also make sure your washing machine isn't leaking water underneath or behind, it doesn't take much of a leak over time to give a mildew/musty odor.

Try to figure out which room the smell is coming into, then you can narrow down the possibilities.



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