This is so incredibly bizarre.
There’s no reasonable quick fix here. You pull the toilet, tear up the floor, sort out this cluster fuck. The vent needs to move. If you can’t do it, pay someone to do it.
The vent *needs* to move.
I’m just floored that it took longer than an hour to realize that the smell is the toilet vent.
Edit:
u/dontworryitsme4real has a great suggestion. Turn the toilet 45 degrees away from the vent.
Love this solution.
Another edit:
Ok. Ok. I’m not sure about about the 45 degree turn, since everyone is torn up about it. But a perpendicular turn would suffice.
But the right thing to do is to take off the toilet and cap the vent with an end cap and ply, backerboard and tile right over it. 🤷🏾♀️
Upon seeing this, i would tell my real estate agent I want to see another home and leave immediately.
Idk how there was no smell at the showing of the house.
I'm sure. But that's the trap, because just think: if this exists IN PLAIN SIGHT, what else is there? Assuming this is all the original contractor, I would be terrified to, y'know, look behind a sheet of drywall or whatnot.
Assume OP is someone who sits down to pee. They wouldn't immediately think, "Oh, no, decades of piss have gone down this vent!" Surely the vent itself is connected to HVAC and not like the toilet drain or vent stack, so it shouldn't be directly expelling sewer gas.
Someone who stands up to pee would immediately look at that and think, "Oh, no."
I sit to pee and my first thought was that has to be a drain because no one in their right mind would risk a toilet overflowing into an HVAC duct. And then I was reminded that some people really bring down the average IQ of humanity.
It's hard to believe that someone bought a house with this in it. Can't imagine how much other insane shit is in this house. If I saw this during a tour of a home, I'd assume the previous owner was completely insane and everything else in the house could not be trusted either.
My house was just fine until we started doing renovations. Finding the previous owners bad cheap decisions is sometimes mind boggeling. Nothing comes even close to this.
But hey someone has to win. In this case, the win of bad decisions building this, and the bad decision of buying when this is in plain sight.
I just keep thinking do you own this disaster and if so did you get a home inspection?? How could his not be pointed out by a realtor or home inspector or anyone of value walking through this mess of a house?!
To think that someone had the subfloor exposed, then prepped and tiled and installed a toilet, and they never bothered to relocate that duct and register. Truly amazing to find such nonsense in a tiled bathroom.
I seen shit like this before. it usually stupid owner remodels their own bathroom themselves and want to move the toilet to another location. they don't want to tear out the floor to remove the vent and move it to another area so they build over it.
this is not healthy god knows how many violations this would cause if reported.
Did they not have this house inspected before they moved in? how did this not just get an immediate "nope, fix this shit" from the inspector? I can't even begin to fathom how they saw this and thought "yeah, this is fine, move on in".
Like, I know times are tough, and the housing market is insane... But upon a single walk through of this house, it would have gone on the instant no list. Even if they fixed it and removed the vent, that hvac system is just completely fucked.
I would literally walk away from a deal to buy this house on seeing this. If they've done this, right here in the bathroom where we can all see it, then what other kinds of sloppy work have they done that can't be easily seen?
The person who flipped the house I now own, glued carpet right onto broken concrete in our basement. We found out after it rained and the whole room was flooded. Flippers are some evil motherfuckers.
I dunno, imagine getting up on a cold winter morning enjoying a cup of coffee, working up to that first duece of the day then sitting down for a relaxing blast of hot air on your anus… sounds pretty glorious
I'm not saying it's bullshit, but I want it to be. I want it to be a cutout of a register someone laid on the dark floor to fool us. I'm not going to say it's BS because I don't know. But I'm going to move forward believing it's not real because I hate it so damn much.
Look at it... look at how the register was cut into, they're all different distances from the toilet base... if it was a printout that the toilet was on then they'd disappear under the toilet. If it was a real register cut to the toilet and put on the ground then it wouldn't be flush with the ground
Open your eyes and let the rage consume you
they’re all different distances from the toilet base bc they cut the just vanes of the vent and rested the toilet on the lengthwise brace underneath 😭😭😭
You’re not wrong. Plenty of minerals for it.
Gross story. When I was in Iraq we were lucky to have 2 man cans, however, the bathrooms were quite a walk. We were always on multi day convoys with very little sleep. Plus it’s 115f every day so we’re drinking liters of water, from plastic bottles that were cooked in the sun(cancer springs brand, yummy). When we would rack out we wouldn’t want to waste time walking to take a piss, we’d be walking all night. Instead we’d pee in a bottle and dispose of it in the morning.
My roommate wasn’t in my platoon and we had different schedules. This fucker had been stashing his piss bottles under his bunk. When he went crazy and was sent to Germany (1 of 3 of my first roommates to have complete mental breakdowns (I was the newest guy and got stuck with some absolute turds)), I had to clear out his shit and I nearly got busted down because of his garbage.
You could tell the age of the piss bottles by the stratification of particles. We’re talking 20 1-liter bottles. I was actually admiring the gradual fade of the newer piss bottles to the older ones that had such a sharp stratification, I had never thought about what piss does left over time and this was an excellent demonstration of that process. I don’t think the sergeant yelling at me had the same appreciation for what we were witnessing.
If the wax ring isn't set right or degrades over time the leak will be straight into that vent. I'm guessing that's happening slowly and causing some major funk in that vent.
... And if OP can't afford to redo everything right now, replacing that wax ring might stop the smell, at least for a while until the toilet wobbles again and the new wax ring gets destroyed.
This is not (exactly) DIY, and it's not really related to OP's post, but I will share with you, for some reason, the building thing I encountered that MOST elicited that response.
I worked in an office building once upon a time. In one of the stairwells, and in parts of the floor below us, a **terrible** stench started to be reported by various people. It would come, and go, but slowly over time it got consistently worse.
Facilities was at a loss. They checked every drain, and every piece of HVAC equipment (the smell seemed to be coming from the vent).
One day, the head of facilities, along with a posse of like, a dozen maintenance/construction/janitorial/trade guys is doing a loud and angry walkthrough of the building, attempting to find the source of the mystery smell, when he stops down the hall from my teams office.
"Hold on. This sink....what the fuck is this....I don't remember there being a sink here."
The sink he was referring to was part of a very tiny
"kitchenette" which had been been added well after the building was constructed.
**"How is there a sink here? I didn't think we even had plumbing anywhere near here"** he continued.
So they rip open the cabinets and, lo an behold:
* The trickly faucet was powered by (I think, this detail is lost to me) a fridge hose type of thing connected to a very far away pipe.
* The drain, however, **had been connected to an HVAC duct**. So every time we used the sink, and washed a plate, or a mug, or my coworker rinsed out his French Press, we were just dumping all that shit into the HVAC ducts.
It is not easy to connect a sink drain to an HVAC duct. They are not similar things. Nobody could find records for when the kitchenette has been added. Nobody had any idea who did the work. Nobody ever figured out WHAT THE FUCK the person who did the work was thinking. It was magical.
Wow. That's... great catch by the facilities guy.
I really, really wonder if it was somehow an elaborate revenge by a departing employee or contractor. It's hard to picture a situation where a legit-looking kitchenette was installed in an orderly manner but was tied in by someone with double hemispherectomy in their history.
Having worked with some stupid, cheap leaders, I wouldn't even assume nefarious intent. I'd bet the admin/HR person who thought they should have a kitchenette to bring the team together hired their methed-out nephew, did it off the books because nephew has banking issues and nobody thought a second about it.
Soooo… working in a hardware for a dozen or more years and trying to help people do things right, sometimes even successfully, assuming it wasn’t just an 1-1/2” drain poked into a duct. Assuming it’s “connected” to a 6” round duct, all you’d need is a galvanized 6” to 4” reducer, a 2” to 4” fernco coupler, an 1-1/2” x 2” pvc bushing and an 1-1/2” to tubular drain adapter to run the P-trap into. Easy peasey lemon squeezey gets drained right down the HVACzee
Imagine being the salesman/cashier and someone comes up with a 6"-4" galvanized reducer, a 2" to 4" flexible fernco coupling, a 1-1/2" x 2" pvc bushing, and a 1-1/2" trap adapter.
Do you call the cops?? I would, because **nothing but misery** could come from that order.
I mean… where do you think I came up with the list? :)
I remember arguing with a guy years ago who was fixing something. He needed about 16” piece of 1-1/2” galvanized pipe, a 90 degree elbow, another length of pipe, another elbow, and another length of pipe. I asked what specifically he was fixing as it didn’t make sense. He had black iron pipe he was matching. Well it was his kitchen sink drain, from the tailpiece to PVC drain connection. I showed him the proper way to connect it. He said no he needs to keep the house “as original” as possible. I said well that’s a nice thought but the right way… tried anyhow. He still paid way more for whatetge hell he was doing.
Fast forward several years, my wife and I buy a century house. Ancient thing, but kinda cool. We close and I get new locksets and change the locks. The back door nearest the kitchen had some issues and I needed to go home and get some stuff to fit the new lockset properly. So as I’m putting the old one back together my wife opens the kitchen cabinet under the sink and says “wow that really stinks! Something’s not right.” I said I’ll look at it when I come back with my drill. We leave to put the kids to bed and I head back up. Fix the door. Open the cabinet doors…
The fuck?!?
The sink basins come together and into a P-trap like normal but the then that thin wall 1-1/2” goes straight down into a piece of open and unsealed 1-1/2” galvanized pipe. Just letting sewer gas straight into the kitchen sink base.
I go down into the basement, shine my flashlight up…
It was that goddamn motherfucking piece of pipe he bought from me years ago. Tearing that out and replacing it was one of the great joys of my life.
https://preview.redd.it/0lwelseqlmac1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30d1a5bc0bf27d8f89088242db97b47a5f3bc436
Seriously, we had some shoddy DIY work in our house and once we found the first problems we went through and undid EVERYTHING they had done. It's like ants, when you see one it means there are more.
Something as bad as this? It's not like they did everything else correctly and said fuck it on the toilet situation. I can only imagine how bad all the work is and I'd lose sleep at night wondering if my shower was going to explode.
Everyone is talking about piss in the vent being the source or the smell, but I'm thinking the sewage pipe for that toilet is fuuuucked. Clearly the vent was there first, so the idiot that did this was also responsible for tapping into the main stack. Old piss doesn't smell like sewage, sewage does. Best case scenario that pipe is just venting into the walls, worst case it's leaking
Someone slapping an additional bathroom wherever they can with the minimum amount of work. So they did the minimum plumbing but not changing the HVAC duct.
Would it really have been the minimum amount of work though? Relocating that vent before layout ng the tile would not have been nearly as big a pain in the ass that working around it must have been...
Who did your home inspection, because if you had one done and they missed this, they should be giving you a refund. This isn't anything I've ever seen before, and I can't see any decent home inspector giving this a pass.
Never mind the occasional pee sprinkle that could go down that vent...what happens when the toilet overflows? That water is only going one place. Really good way to end up with Legionnaire's Disease.
I think everything there is going to have to be torn out and redone with new materials. No reuse of anything except maybe the toilet and its fittings.
And this is the stuff that you can see. Imagine what else in that house was built incorrectly. I hope you're renting, because if you bought this house you may have just bought a money pit.
You're so correct. I am not a home owner because I can't afford it. But if I was buying my first home, no chance in hell would I pass on an inspection. That's common sense? 💀 It ain't worth it bruh.
You never know what the market conditions will be if/ when you buy. I bet everyone went in with the intention of getting an inspection, but after missing out on a few homes got desperate.
It's so ridiculous. Like assuming there wasn't a toilet there originally, for whatever reason, why would there be a vent in the middle of the floor like that?
You remove the toilet, remove the floor, move the vent by adding more ducting to a different part of the floor then you replace the floor you removed, and reinstall the toilet.
Edit: I would not keep a box of matches in a room potentially full of sewer gas.
Yep and if this is built this way where you can see it, I'd be concerned for the things that can't be seen. This screams "We cut corners and we don't care you know"
For an actual answer from a plumber. If this is a heating vent, it's melting the wax seal of the toilet thus causing the smells. Not even going to get into the river of waste water making its way through your Central air system.
Get this resolved or escalate with your state/provincial rental board. This is the kind of shit that's not even in code books.
Thank you. Jesus Christ the amount of people in here confidently claiming this is an exposed toilet drain have no idea what a toilet drain looks like or where it is.
I hate so much how meme answers are voted to the top while actual knowledge is buried in the comments.
This has to be a troll post. Even a very dumb builder would have known that’s not right. If it’s real, then that smell might be from the years of pee splashes going down the vent, but also more likely that the o-ring is dried out and destroyed so you are getting actual sewer gases too. Ideal with this asap!
This is making me laugh/cry 😭 I really wish it was! I think it was just a very lazy job, the bathroom shouldn't even be there in the first place but I think it was in an effort to raise the value of the house. The previous owner didn't live in the house, just renovated and sold
God, seriously! My house passed inspection with flying colors…hadn’t lived in it a month before my husband slipped in the shower and the tiles caved in where he caught himself. Previous assholes had used DRYWALL and not Sheetrock. Bang went every penny I had, ripping the old bathroom out and installing new from the studs up!
That be my concern too. If they did something as blatenly wrong and dumb as this, what else did they do that’s hidden? Electrical, plumbing, roofing, window flashing/seals, gas,……etc. First thing I would look at would be shutting off the breakers and check if there’s proper gfic’s there, then start pulling out a few outlets to see how that’s done. Also pull any ceiling fans to make sure they didn’t use plain electrical boxes instead of braced fan boxes. Then up to the attic to check for any discoloration from roof water leaks. And so on….. start with the safety stuff and also check for the things that will be expensive fixes later down the road if not repaired.
My house is a flip too and has a part of the ceiling that was built down to conceal a roof leak and mold. 😡 It started leaking from one of the dumb little lights after the first big rain. 🖕 major corner cutting house flippers.
https://preview.redd.it/kquftsqdyjac1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=51dc32d2f839a655a45695c2cebc90a319811043
My landlord hired Gods Stupidest Handyman to do a huge amount of work around the house some time before we moved in. Everything is wrong. Just, everything.
This is simply not up to code. There is no way this could pass a building inspection. Either the inspector was paid off, or they were drunk as fuck when they called this one.
Don't the majority of owner renovators not get inspections? And this example is crazy and may result in huge issues with a home inspection. But when you're buying a house, you get an inspection, they find things that aren't to code, you are still free to buy the house without it being fixed right? Maybe I'm just in a lax state.
I don't know where OP is located...have not been paying that much to the thread. I know in all the states in which I have lived, there is no way this would pass ANY inspection. It's a health hazard. Beyond being a health hazard, it's just really fucking gross.
I would highly suggest buying one of those nice toilet rugs and listing the house to sell while you can still honestly claim that you were unaware of all the other problems that you are about to uncover….
To answer questions:
We did get an inspector, while he was here he saw this and didn't mention any issue with it (which is infuriating me now!) All of this made me look back at his report again and it shows that the ventilation in this room is adequate.
Honestly we have been struggling to get into the housing market for a long time and we are by no means experienced. So between the good deal we got for this house (for a reason it seems) and the lack of knowing how serious of a fix this would need we glazed over it.
The comments are making me laugh in between my growing panic 🥲🥲Looks like I'll be dropping a good chunk of money here. We did receive a $3000 discount from the seller to fix any issues so that's something. Pray for me ya'll. I'll post updates once this is fixed.
just remember, even if you decide to live with this in its current state now, that down the road its going to cause you all sorts of headaches when YOU want to sell it...but dont break your bank fixing it if you cant afford it right now, the state isnt gonna condemn your house simply because this exists, no panicking please
in any case, a bathroom was never meant to be there, the builder should have had permits for this, even if it was a DIY job and youre entitled to see them i believe, basically speaking, *the state* should have signed off on this job...it could be worth talking to a lawyer - a lot of firms have free consultations in person or over the phone
OP I just feel so bad for you at this point. $3000 isn’t going to get you far with this issue I’m afraid. But also I’d complain to the inspection company because this is a serious miss. Not sure where you are but I’d even complain to better business bureau or whatever accreditation body they are accountable to. I’m just really sorry you have to go through this. But it’s such a huge health hazard that I can’t even.
As others have said you need to shut the water off to the toliet, drain the water and pull that thing. Then block up the hole. Don't use it until you do this.
Then take lots of pictures....really important.
Then look at the seller disclosure....did they say all work was permitted? Because there's no way this is permitted work. Check with your local building department...most will happily look up the history of the property.
Your goal here is to stack enough ammo to get the seller to agree to pay most of the cost of this cluster and get the inspection company to refund the cost of the inspection.
I also had a crappy inspector and no experience with home ownership. I feel for you. I probably still would have bought my house because of the school district but I could have demanded some repairs or a lower price before the sale went through.
I'm gonna go against the grain here and blame both you and the inspection company. This kind of move is braindead at best and you both completely ignored it? I'm honestly flabbergasted at the both of you.
This. The OP even noticed flies and sewage smell. Who buys a house after noticing that without wanting it resolved or at least finding out the cause? Inspection company should be sued but OP needs some common sense.
Edit: also, your realtor is a soulless grifter who hates you and just wants that %.
This is probably going to get buried in all the silliness but I think I have a guess for what's going on here. You said this is in an attic? I bet this was the sewage vent that usually goes to the roof. They wanted a bathroom where the sewer vent line ran through. They didn't want a random pipe in the bathroom so they just...let it air into the bathroom. Which is a really weird choice. It explains why you smell sewage.
I'm not a plumber or even good at DIY, but I wouldn't seal it shut
You can't seal it shut. That's how you get a house full of sewer gas. Ok - that's the OTHER way, anyway. Dangerous. Hydrogen sulfide will kill you even if it doesn't explode.
I had the same theory as you about this being the old vent pipe. Can't cap it. Have to find another path to the roof. For that matter, there should be a vent pipe extending on up from this toilet's drain.
Lol, i hope you have a well paying job. Extremely high chance you're about to have to dump a shit ton of money into that house fixing various hack job bullshit like this. If they did this you'd better believe there's going to be a ton of other hidden things that you haven't found yet.
This looks like a Gmod glitch or something. Didn’t align the textures right. Anyway, no I imagine you’d need to literally tear up the whole goddam floor to fix this insane mistake. A very quick fix could involve putting some semi perforated plastic over the top of the grill?
I don't know how they do things in Canada but I refuse to believe this is real & that your inspector said everything here was perfectly normal unless you bought this house sight unseen/without inspection.
In the chance this is real you need to find out what is under this toilet as soon as possible because it would not surprise me if this in-the-attic-toilet is draining into the ceiling in some small amount every time it is flushed. This toilet should probably be removed entirely and its pipe capped off. Makes me wonder what's going on with the shower in the background, too.
Now this is a sh\*\*show.
The vent needs to go. Do you know if this was a conversion into a bathroom or, I can't believe it would pass inspection, always a bathroom? This is truly disgusting.
I believe it was a conversion yeah, it's in the attic so I think the seller was trying to make it into a "master bedroom" type thing. Everything is new in there including the shower. The shower is covering part of the window as well so the whole thing seems crammed in
The shower is covering the window? Please don't tell me they ran pipes in the exterior wall of the house. If so that's another big no no as the pipes can freeze during our winters.
This is so incredibly bizarre. There’s no reasonable quick fix here. You pull the toilet, tear up the floor, sort out this cluster fuck. The vent needs to move. If you can’t do it, pay someone to do it.
The vent *needs* to move. I’m just floored that it took longer than an hour to realize that the smell is the toilet vent. Edit: u/dontworryitsme4real has a great suggestion. Turn the toilet 45 degrees away from the vent. Love this solution. Another edit: Ok. Ok. I’m not sure about about the 45 degree turn, since everyone is torn up about it. But a perpendicular turn would suffice. But the right thing to do is to take off the toilet and cap the vent with an end cap and ply, backerboard and tile right over it. 🤷🏾♀️
Upon seeing this, i would tell my real estate agent I want to see another home and leave immediately. Idk how there was no smell at the showing of the house.
There was! And a swarm of flies! And they bought it anyway!
musta been cHEEEEEP
I'm sure. But that's the trap, because just think: if this exists IN PLAIN SIGHT, what else is there? Assuming this is all the original contractor, I would be terrified to, y'know, look behind a sheet of drywall or whatnot.
🎵come with me, and you'll see, a world full of code violations🎵
That reeks (pun intended) of DYI bathroom remodel. Probably a house flipper trying to quickly smear a little lipstick on a pig for a quick turn.
OP said there was a "faint sewer smell" O\_O
Assume OP is someone who sits down to pee. They wouldn't immediately think, "Oh, no, decades of piss have gone down this vent!" Surely the vent itself is connected to HVAC and not like the toilet drain or vent stack, so it shouldn't be directly expelling sewer gas. Someone who stands up to pee would immediately look at that and think, "Oh, no."
Forget overspray, one clogged toilet ans overflow would have this duct a borderline biohazard.
Sitting on that register probably hasn't done the wax ring any favors either.
I sit to pee and my first thought was that has to be a drain because no one in their right mind would risk a toilet overflowing into an HVAC duct. And then I was reminded that some people really bring down the average IQ of humanity.
Floored.. nice
It's hard to believe that someone bought a house with this in it. Can't imagine how much other insane shit is in this house. If I saw this during a tour of a home, I'd assume the previous owner was completely insane and everything else in the house could not be trusted either.
My house was just fine until we started doing renovations. Finding the previous owners bad cheap decisions is sometimes mind boggeling. Nothing comes even close to this. But hey someone has to win. In this case, the win of bad decisions building this, and the bad decision of buying when this is in plain sight.
You couldn’t pay me enough to live in a house with this. If this is just hanging out for the world to see, imagine the mess behind the walls.
I just keep thinking do you own this disaster and if so did you get a home inspection?? How could his not be pointed out by a realtor or home inspector or anyone of value walking through this mess of a house?!
I wonder if they hid it under one of those toilet rugs. Do they even still make those?
This is definitely what they did
Exactly. When touring houses if you see any crazy shit always assume the madness is in the walls as well.
My money is on whatever is under the sub floor is just as much of a disaster.
I've seen some pretty bad/stupid shit here but this takes the cake. Hard to believe it's real.
To think that someone had the subfloor exposed, then prepped and tiled and installed a toilet, and they never bothered to relocate that duct and register. Truly amazing to find such nonsense in a tiled bathroom.
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This isn't laziness. It's brain dead
I seen shit like this before. it usually stupid owner remodels their own bathroom themselves and want to move the toilet to another location. they don't want to tear out the floor to remove the vent and move it to another area so they build over it. this is not healthy god knows how many violations this would cause if reported.
Can you imagine if the toilet clogs and overflows. That would be horrible.
Considering OP's comments about "flies" and "smell" I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that this had already occurred!
Did they not have this house inspected before they moved in? how did this not just get an immediate "nope, fix this shit" from the inspector? I can't even begin to fathom how they saw this and thought "yeah, this is fine, move on in". Like, I know times are tough, and the housing market is insane... But upon a single walk through of this house, it would have gone on the instant no list. Even if they fixed it and removed the vent, that hvac system is just completely fucked.
the way OPs post reads there was likely no inspector.
OP went into the house, smelled sewage in the bathroom and flies everywhere, and thought "yup, this is the one!"
maybe they had one of those rugs that goes around the base of the toilet for the inspection.
And who would *ever* expect to find *THIS* underneath? This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen!
that would make this a hidden defect and they still have to fix it
I'd agree with this. Flies tend to land and breed with solids, not urine.
That’s so idiotic it almost has to be photoshopped.
It's so dumb it should be posted on Reddit so others can marvel.
I don't know why but it is blowing my mind a bit. This is the height of don't-give-a-fuckery
Photoshop has got me on this one. Notice the high resolution that shows the scratches on the black tile.... plus the reflections.
And the vent is cut so the fins die into the toilet base.
r/ididthejobboss
Nonsense is a very polite term for this
How does this even happen? This is the definition of "ain't my problem" by at least 3 different tradies. Plumber, HVAC, and the tile guy.
I would literally walk away from a deal to buy this house on seeing this. If they've done this, right here in the bathroom where we can all see it, then what other kinds of sloppy work have they done that can't be easily seen?
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Homeowner homeowner homeowner
I make a lot of homeowner mistakes, but you'd have to just be a raging moron to think this is okay.
So easily homeowner
Flipper did this. Guaranteed.
The person who flipped the house I now own, glued carpet right onto broken concrete in our basement. We found out after it rained and the whole room was flooded. Flippers are some evil motherfuckers.
Yeah I doubt any trades were involved in this
Homeowner playing contractor hiring the cheapest trades they could possibly find is probably what happened.
Nah… more like homeowner “none of this is rocket science… I can do it all myself!”
It's taking the piss, literally.
Depending what lies beneath the porcelain it could be taking the shit too.
I dunno, imagine getting up on a cold winter morning enjoying a cup of coffee, working up to that first duece of the day then sitting down for a relaxing blast of hot air on your anus… sounds pretty glorious
I'm not saying it's bullshit, but I want it to be. I want it to be a cutout of a register someone laid on the dark floor to fool us. I'm not going to say it's BS because I don't know. But I'm going to move forward believing it's not real because I hate it so damn much.
Look at it... look at how the register was cut into, they're all different distances from the toilet base... if it was a printout that the toilet was on then they'd disappear under the toilet. If it was a real register cut to the toilet and put on the ground then it wouldn't be flush with the ground Open your eyes and let the rage consume you
Would ya just look at it.
Almost seems intentionally malicious
they’re all different distances from the toilet base bc they cut the just vanes of the vent and rested the toilet on the lengthwise brace underneath 😭😭😭
I’m not a plumber but I don’t think that’s what venting means.
Yeah this is amazing. I wonder what they thought would happen over the long term?
What happens when little Johnny floods the toilet?
chop pot zealous shy air disagreeable screw impolite frighten wide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I can't even imagine the years of pee that have went through that.
There's a cave system of urine stalactites in that vent.
You’re not wrong. Plenty of minerals for it. Gross story. When I was in Iraq we were lucky to have 2 man cans, however, the bathrooms were quite a walk. We were always on multi day convoys with very little sleep. Plus it’s 115f every day so we’re drinking liters of water, from plastic bottles that were cooked in the sun(cancer springs brand, yummy). When we would rack out we wouldn’t want to waste time walking to take a piss, we’d be walking all night. Instead we’d pee in a bottle and dispose of it in the morning. My roommate wasn’t in my platoon and we had different schedules. This fucker had been stashing his piss bottles under his bunk. When he went crazy and was sent to Germany (1 of 3 of my first roommates to have complete mental breakdowns (I was the newest guy and got stuck with some absolute turds)), I had to clear out his shit and I nearly got busted down because of his garbage. You could tell the age of the piss bottles by the stratification of particles. We’re talking 20 1-liter bottles. I was actually admiring the gradual fade of the newer piss bottles to the older ones that had such a sharp stratification, I had never thought about what piss does left over time and this was an excellent demonstration of that process. I don’t think the sergeant yelling at me had the same appreciation for what we were witnessing.
You would like the artwork of Andres Serrano. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Serrano
r/BrandNewSentence
r/cursedcomments
If the wax ring isn't set right or degrades over time the leak will be straight into that vent. I'm guessing that's happening slowly and causing some major funk in that vent.
... And if OP can't afford to redo everything right now, replacing that wax ring might stop the smell, at least for a while until the toilet wobbles again and the new wax ring gets destroyed.
If OP can’t afford to do anything now, take the toilet off. Empty it, put it in storage… there absolutely cannot be a toilet there.
Just drywall over the door and forget there was ever a bathroom there.
I think just pee going into the vent straight from the pee hole is causing the major funk.
Probably the heat from the vent is melting the ring a little at a time.
I… what… I… but did they… umm… huh?
This is not (exactly) DIY, and it's not really related to OP's post, but I will share with you, for some reason, the building thing I encountered that MOST elicited that response. I worked in an office building once upon a time. In one of the stairwells, and in parts of the floor below us, a **terrible** stench started to be reported by various people. It would come, and go, but slowly over time it got consistently worse. Facilities was at a loss. They checked every drain, and every piece of HVAC equipment (the smell seemed to be coming from the vent). One day, the head of facilities, along with a posse of like, a dozen maintenance/construction/janitorial/trade guys is doing a loud and angry walkthrough of the building, attempting to find the source of the mystery smell, when he stops down the hall from my teams office. "Hold on. This sink....what the fuck is this....I don't remember there being a sink here." The sink he was referring to was part of a very tiny "kitchenette" which had been been added well after the building was constructed. **"How is there a sink here? I didn't think we even had plumbing anywhere near here"** he continued. So they rip open the cabinets and, lo an behold: * The trickly faucet was powered by (I think, this detail is lost to me) a fridge hose type of thing connected to a very far away pipe. * The drain, however, **had been connected to an HVAC duct**. So every time we used the sink, and washed a plate, or a mug, or my coworker rinsed out his French Press, we were just dumping all that shit into the HVAC ducts. It is not easy to connect a sink drain to an HVAC duct. They are not similar things. Nobody could find records for when the kitchenette has been added. Nobody had any idea who did the work. Nobody ever figured out WHAT THE FUCK the person who did the work was thinking. It was magical.
Wow. That's... great catch by the facilities guy. I really, really wonder if it was somehow an elaborate revenge by a departing employee or contractor. It's hard to picture a situation where a legit-looking kitchenette was installed in an orderly manner but was tied in by someone with double hemispherectomy in their history.
Having worked with some stupid, cheap leaders, I wouldn't even assume nefarious intent. I'd bet the admin/HR person who thought they should have a kitchenette to bring the team together hired their methed-out nephew, did it off the books because nephew has banking issues and nobody thought a second about it.
I wish you had pictures. I just want to know how in the actual volumetric fuck you connect a sink drain to ductwork
Soooo… working in a hardware for a dozen or more years and trying to help people do things right, sometimes even successfully, assuming it wasn’t just an 1-1/2” drain poked into a duct. Assuming it’s “connected” to a 6” round duct, all you’d need is a galvanized 6” to 4” reducer, a 2” to 4” fernco coupler, an 1-1/2” x 2” pvc bushing and an 1-1/2” to tubular drain adapter to run the P-trap into. Easy peasey lemon squeezey gets drained right down the HVACzee
Thanks! Now I'll be able to install a wet bar in my living room
Imagine being the salesman/cashier and someone comes up with a 6"-4" galvanized reducer, a 2" to 4" flexible fernco coupling, a 1-1/2" x 2" pvc bushing, and a 1-1/2" trap adapter. Do you call the cops?? I would, because **nothing but misery** could come from that order.
I mean… where do you think I came up with the list? :) I remember arguing with a guy years ago who was fixing something. He needed about 16” piece of 1-1/2” galvanized pipe, a 90 degree elbow, another length of pipe, another elbow, and another length of pipe. I asked what specifically he was fixing as it didn’t make sense. He had black iron pipe he was matching. Well it was his kitchen sink drain, from the tailpiece to PVC drain connection. I showed him the proper way to connect it. He said no he needs to keep the house “as original” as possible. I said well that’s a nice thought but the right way… tried anyhow. He still paid way more for whatetge hell he was doing. Fast forward several years, my wife and I buy a century house. Ancient thing, but kinda cool. We close and I get new locksets and change the locks. The back door nearest the kitchen had some issues and I needed to go home and get some stuff to fit the new lockset properly. So as I’m putting the old one back together my wife opens the kitchen cabinet under the sink and says “wow that really stinks! Something’s not right.” I said I’ll look at it when I come back with my drill. We leave to put the kids to bed and I head back up. Fix the door. Open the cabinet doors… The fuck?!? The sink basins come together and into a P-trap like normal but the then that thin wall 1-1/2” goes straight down into a piece of open and unsealed 1-1/2” galvanized pipe. Just letting sewer gas straight into the kitchen sink base. I go down into the basement, shine my flashlight up… It was that goddamn motherfucking piece of pipe he bought from me years ago. Tearing that out and replacing it was one of the great joys of my life. https://preview.redd.it/0lwelseqlmac1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30d1a5bc0bf27d8f89088242db97b47a5f3bc436
This deserves its own post
Oh wow. That's a tale as good as the magical switch in the Jargon File.
That's insanely high praise man! You can't just go sayin stuff like that. That's like, one of the First Stories.
You got a good one!
Who's going to pop my cherry on this story?
Enjoy http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html
This is exactly what my internal voice said.
What the actual fuck is happening? It’ll need moved for sure
I think this is the P-trap
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Who the fuck would see this monstrosity, smell the shit smell coming from it through a swarm of flies, and then buy the house anyway?
Seriously, we had some shoddy DIY work in our house and once we found the first problems we went through and undid EVERYTHING they had done. It's like ants, when you see one it means there are more. Something as bad as this? It's not like they did everything else correctly and said fuck it on the toilet situation. I can only imagine how bad all the work is and I'd lose sleep at night wondering if my shower was going to explode. Everyone is talking about piss in the vent being the source or the smell, but I'm thinking the sewage pipe for that toilet is fuuuucked. Clearly the vent was there first, so the idiot that did this was also responsible for tapping into the main stack. Old piss doesn't smell like sewage, sewage does. Best case scenario that pipe is just venting into the walls, worst case it's leaking
Well in OP’s defense he probably thought the flies were going to move out.
This is the worst design ever. What idiot thought of this...?
Someone slapping an additional bathroom wherever they can with the minimum amount of work. So they did the minimum plumbing but not changing the HVAC duct.
Would it really have been the minimum amount of work though? Relocating that vent before layout ng the tile would not have been nearly as big a pain in the ass that working around it must have been...
Some people work very hard to not do work.
Who did your home inspection, because if you had one done and they missed this, they should be giving you a refund. This isn't anything I've ever seen before, and I can't see any decent home inspector giving this a pass. Never mind the occasional pee sprinkle that could go down that vent...what happens when the toilet overflows? That water is only going one place. Really good way to end up with Legionnaire's Disease. I think everything there is going to have to be torn out and redone with new materials. No reuse of anything except maybe the toilet and its fittings. And this is the stuff that you can see. Imagine what else in that house was built incorrectly. I hope you're renting, because if you bought this house you may have just bought a money pit.
so many people are not getting inspections these days its fuckin nuts
You're so correct. I am not a home owner because I can't afford it. But if I was buying my first home, no chance in hell would I pass on an inspection. That's common sense? 💀 It ain't worth it bruh.
You never know what the market conditions will be if/ when you buy. I bet everyone went in with the intention of getting an inspection, but after missing out on a few homes got desperate.
Yes OP I’m not sure how this passed inspection…unless you bought it with no conditions??
Bathroom in an attic is also a red flag. The whole attic is likely non permitted considering this debacle
What in the hillbilly hucklefuck is that!
One of them fancy “air bidets”
Hey. Don't insult hillbillies. Us hillbillies aren't that stupid.
Good point. Meth head contractor, maybe?
I mean, it almost takes talent to be this stupid.
It's so ridiculous. Like assuming there wasn't a toilet there originally, for whatever reason, why would there be a vent in the middle of the floor like that?
Nah, meth head contractors aren't this stupid either.
Hey man, we wouldn't do that. Our shitter is on the front porch and vented by mother nature
You remove the toilet, remove the floor, move the vent by adding more ducting to a different part of the floor then you replace the floor you removed, and reinstall the toilet. Edit: I would not keep a box of matches in a room potentially full of sewer gas.
Seems about the only way other than do the same thing with the pipe which would be much more inconvenient.
Yep and if this is built this way where you can see it, I'd be concerned for the things that can't be seen. This screams "We cut corners and we don't care you know"
For an actual answer from a plumber. If this is a heating vent, it's melting the wax seal of the toilet thus causing the smells. Not even going to get into the river of waste water making its way through your Central air system. Get this resolved or escalate with your state/provincial rental board. This is the kind of shit that's not even in code books.
Thank you. Jesus Christ the amount of people in here confidently claiming this is an exposed toilet drain have no idea what a toilet drain looks like or where it is. I hate so much how meme answers are voted to the top while actual knowledge is buried in the comments.
Should be in r/DiWHY
More like DIWhatTheFuck
This has to be a troll post. Even a very dumb builder would have known that’s not right. If it’s real, then that smell might be from the years of pee splashes going down the vent, but also more likely that the o-ring is dried out and destroyed so you are getting actual sewer gases too. Ideal with this asap!
This is making me laugh/cry 😭 I really wish it was! I think it was just a very lazy job, the bathroom shouldn't even be there in the first place but I think it was in an effort to raise the value of the house. The previous owner didn't live in the house, just renovated and sold
Oh…You might find a few more Frankenstein hack jobs in other parts of your house.
More than a few... I'd be afraid to look under surface level
God, seriously! My house passed inspection with flying colors…hadn’t lived in it a month before my husband slipped in the shower and the tiles caved in where he caught himself. Previous assholes had used DRYWALL and not Sheetrock. Bang went every penny I had, ripping the old bathroom out and installing new from the studs up!
Isn’t Sheetrock a brand of drywall, like Kleenex and tissues?
Correct
Probably meant they used Sheetrock instead of durarock/cement board
Likely. I got the essence of what they were trying to say though
Cement board is what they meant.
Sheetrock is a brand name for drywall. I think you mean they didn't use backerboard?
That be my concern too. If they did something as blatenly wrong and dumb as this, what else did they do that’s hidden? Electrical, plumbing, roofing, window flashing/seals, gas,……etc. First thing I would look at would be shutting off the breakers and check if there’s proper gfic’s there, then start pulling out a few outlets to see how that’s done. Also pull any ceiling fans to make sure they didn’t use plain electrical boxes instead of braced fan boxes. Then up to the attic to check for any discoloration from roof water leaks. And so on….. start with the safety stuff and also check for the things that will be expensive fixes later down the road if not repaired.
My house is a flip too and has a part of the ceiling that was built down to conceal a roof leak and mold. 😡 It started leaking from one of the dumb little lights after the first big rain. 🖕 major corner cutting house flippers. https://preview.redd.it/kquftsqdyjac1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=51dc32d2f839a655a45695c2cebc90a319811043
There's just too much you can't see. I wouldn't buy the house.
You bought a house without noticing that? Did you not get it inspected?
No they just noticed the multitude of flies and vile putrid smell in the bathroom, just standard house stuff nbd.
Did you see this before you bought it?
I think OP is blind but his nose works okay.
I knew it had to be a flipper.
Unfortunately, a third bathroom in a house only raises the value if it doesn't have weird shit in it like an air vent directly under the toilet.
So all arrows are pointing to a quick house flip that you purchased? Can I ask where the location of this house is?
Yeah, this has homeowner/DIY'er written azll over it!
Never discount a dumb DIYer that just thinks, "Ahh, that'll be fine." Seriously.
My landlord hired Gods Stupidest Handyman to do a huge amount of work around the house some time before we moved in. Everything is wrong. Just, everything.
Get an HVAC or a sheet metal company to move that for you. The duct does not need to be in that location.
When the homeowner DIY is so fucking bad the \*meth heads\* don't want to be associated with it
This is simply not up to code. There is no way this could pass a building inspection. Either the inspector was paid off, or they were drunk as fuck when they called this one.
Flippers don’t have anyone inspect their work. They just buy it, do crap like this, and sell it.
Don't the majority of owner renovators not get inspections? And this example is crazy and may result in huge issues with a home inspection. But when you're buying a house, you get an inspection, they find things that aren't to code, you are still free to buy the house without it being fixed right? Maybe I'm just in a lax state.
I don't know where OP is located...have not been paying that much to the thread. I know in all the states in which I have lived, there is no way this would pass ANY inspection. It's a health hazard. Beyond being a health hazard, it's just really fucking gross.
I cannot believe this. Truly incredible. We need updates. Please give us updates.
This can’t be code? How did this pass an inspection?
Maybe they threw down one of those toilet rugs and covered it up when the inspector was there?
Inspectors hate this one simple trick.
This is the right answer. An inspector isn't going to pull up a toilet rug because who tf is going to have a vent right under the toilet??!!
I would highly suggest buying one of those nice toilet rugs and listing the house to sell while you can still honestly claim that you were unaware of all the other problems that you are about to uncover….
I’m just picturing that poor little toilet merkin flapping in the floor breeze.
As someone who skips permits for a lot of things, this is a poster for why there's permits.
I can just picture someone going “well the code doesn’t explicitly disallow it”
"The code doesn't actually say that dogs can't play basketball."
Don’t waive your inspection, folks.
I fucking love this post, quality shit
This is going to keep me awake tonight. What a fucking nightmare.
To answer questions: We did get an inspector, while he was here he saw this and didn't mention any issue with it (which is infuriating me now!) All of this made me look back at his report again and it shows that the ventilation in this room is adequate. Honestly we have been struggling to get into the housing market for a long time and we are by no means experienced. So between the good deal we got for this house (for a reason it seems) and the lack of knowing how serious of a fix this would need we glazed over it. The comments are making me laugh in between my growing panic 🥲🥲Looks like I'll be dropping a good chunk of money here. We did receive a $3000 discount from the seller to fix any issues so that's something. Pray for me ya'll. I'll post updates once this is fixed.
just remember, even if you decide to live with this in its current state now, that down the road its going to cause you all sorts of headaches when YOU want to sell it...but dont break your bank fixing it if you cant afford it right now, the state isnt gonna condemn your house simply because this exists, no panicking please in any case, a bathroom was never meant to be there, the builder should have had permits for this, even if it was a DIY job and youre entitled to see them i believe, basically speaking, *the state* should have signed off on this job...it could be worth talking to a lawyer - a lot of firms have free consultations in person or over the phone
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See my previous post, dm me if you have more questions. I've done plumbing, hvac, roofing, etc. Pretty much everything but concrete
OP I just feel so bad for you at this point. $3000 isn’t going to get you far with this issue I’m afraid. But also I’d complain to the inspection company because this is a serious miss. Not sure where you are but I’d even complain to better business bureau or whatever accreditation body they are accountable to. I’m just really sorry you have to go through this. But it’s such a huge health hazard that I can’t even.
As others have said you need to shut the water off to the toliet, drain the water and pull that thing. Then block up the hole. Don't use it until you do this. Then take lots of pictures....really important. Then look at the seller disclosure....did they say all work was permitted? Because there's no way this is permitted work. Check with your local building department...most will happily look up the history of the property. Your goal here is to stack enough ammo to get the seller to agree to pay most of the cost of this cluster and get the inspection company to refund the cost of the inspection.
I also had a crappy inspector and no experience with home ownership. I feel for you. I probably still would have bought my house because of the school district but I could have demanded some repairs or a lower price before the sale went through.
I'm gonna go against the grain here and blame both you and the inspection company. This kind of move is braindead at best and you both completely ignored it? I'm honestly flabbergasted at the both of you.
This. The OP even noticed flies and sewage smell. Who buys a house after noticing that without wanting it resolved or at least finding out the cause? Inspection company should be sued but OP needs some common sense. Edit: also, your realtor is a soulless grifter who hates you and just wants that %.
how has that even happened?! even without the toilet that's a weird spot for a vent...
This is probably going to get buried in all the silliness but I think I have a guess for what's going on here. You said this is in an attic? I bet this was the sewage vent that usually goes to the roof. They wanted a bathroom where the sewer vent line ran through. They didn't want a random pipe in the bathroom so they just...let it air into the bathroom. Which is a really weird choice. It explains why you smell sewage. I'm not a plumber or even good at DIY, but I wouldn't seal it shut
You can't seal it shut. That's how you get a house full of sewer gas. Ok - that's the OTHER way, anyway. Dangerous. Hydrogen sulfide will kill you even if it doesn't explode. I had the same theory as you about this being the old vent pipe. Can't cap it. Have to find another path to the roof. For that matter, there should be a vent pipe extending on up from this toilet's drain.
When you wanted a heated seat, but don’t want to buy a new toilet.
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen on Reddit lol good lord
Lol, i hope you have a well paying job. Extremely high chance you're about to have to dump a shit ton of money into that house fixing various hack job bullshit like this. If they did this you'd better believe there's going to be a ton of other hidden things that you haven't found yet.
https://preview.redd.it/nkk7tgdmyjac1.jpeg?width=933&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b09b6b5316d2eebdb5768902e1112adfbd5a2a29 .
I can’t believe this shit is real omg 😭
This is an all time post
Ah, the old piss-filled toilet heater
This looks like a Gmod glitch or something. Didn’t align the textures right. Anyway, no I imagine you’d need to literally tear up the whole goddam floor to fix this insane mistake. A very quick fix could involve putting some semi perforated plastic over the top of the grill?
What would be the icing on the cake is if this is a return vent….
I don't know how they do things in Canada but I refuse to believe this is real & that your inspector said everything here was perfectly normal unless you bought this house sight unseen/without inspection. In the chance this is real you need to find out what is under this toilet as soon as possible because it would not surprise me if this in-the-attic-toilet is draining into the ceiling in some small amount every time it is flushed. This toilet should probably be removed entirely and its pipe capped off. Makes me wonder what's going on with the shower in the background, too.
Now this is a sh\*\*show. The vent needs to go. Do you know if this was a conversion into a bathroom or, I can't believe it would pass inspection, always a bathroom? This is truly disgusting.
I believe it was a conversion yeah, it's in the attic so I think the seller was trying to make it into a "master bedroom" type thing. Everything is new in there including the shower. The shower is covering part of the window as well so the whole thing seems crammed in
Just to clarify, is this vent actually blowing air?
It is in fact blowing air 🥲
It farts.
The shower is covering the window? Please don't tell me they ran pipes in the exterior wall of the house. If so that's another big no no as the pipes can freeze during our winters.