On my kitchen and bathroom walls, there are brownish spots and streaks. I’m on city water, not well water. (I live in a small, rural town.) The spots are tan, about the color of cafe au lait. The water looks clear in a clear glass or pitcher. I know it has to do with condensation–these are the only rooms where there’s ever a significant amount of steam, the only the walls show the streaks, not the ceiling, where there are only spots. So it must be from the water.
I live in a rental house. This happened in the last rental house I lived in here, too. Before that, I lived in the country and had well water and no spots. So clearly, it’s something in the water. I would guess it to be rust from the pipes, as both houses I’ve lived in have been old, but there’s not enough orange in the spots to indicate rust.
Could it be iron in the water? Years ago, when my son was a baby, the water in the washing machine dyed his diapers dark brown (probably more practical than white). I found out it was from bleach reacting to iron in the water. But I’ve used bleach many times here, and no brown water. And why does it only show up in condensation? It’s there even before significant evaporation; I’ve wiped away wet drips.
I’m getting sick of having to wipe down the walls and ceiling (no fan in the bathroom; the one in the kitchen is a wimpy stove hood one), but I’d feel better if I knew what this was.
Are there any smokers in the house? Do you do a lot of frying? Smoke, whether from smoking or frying, can land on the walls. When there is condensation, there can be streaks.
I’d bet it was from some type of soil on the walls rather than the water itself. My mom and dad’s kitchen was awful with streaks from frying foods and heavy smoking.
Do you live somewhere on the west coast? Cedar and redwood are more common building materials out there and part of the problem may be tannin staining. Often more obvious on exterior surfaces but can manifest inside, especially if there isn’t adequate ventilation in more humid roooms, like you describe.
The last place I rented did this in the master bathroom. There were a couple classy cigarette burns on the edge of the tub to give away what the brown gunk on the walls was or else I might have never suspected it.
Nope, no smokers. I’ve lived here 1 1/2 years, and nobody has smoked in the house in all that time. The elderly lady who lived here before me was in here 10 years, and she didn’t smoke either. Plus the house was immaculate and the bathroom and kitchen were freshly painted white when I moved in.
I seldom fry foods.
I live in the Rocky Mountain area. It’s a 1050’s house with no redwood in the construction .
I was thinking this was going to be an easy one, and I’d be using the :smack: icon, but maybe it’s tougher than I thought it’d be.
Huh, I immediately thought of smokers, too. My second thought was of gravel roads. We have to dust our walls periodically because limestone dust builds up on them from the gravel road that borders our property. Anything like that nearby, or maybe a quarry?
Well, there’s your problem. Those “spots” are just part of your castle, likely the result of your guards pouring hot oil down the walls to keep the peasants away, or else simply part of the granite from which your keep is built.
I have brown stains on mY writing studio walls. I have identified it as woodrat piss, from when theY had colonized the ceiling. VerY difficult to remove. Hope that’s not what Yours is.
Yuck. I don’t have any vermin, Ulfreida, so I don’t think it’s that. Plus the spots appear almost everywhere. Everything suggests it’s something in the water. I’d just like to know WHAT. I drink the water (not off the walls, of course), and it doesn’t seem to be harming me…but it’s not giving me magical super powers either.
I notice brown spots like the OP describes, but only in the bathroom, and mostly on the inside of the door. They look as though they are residues of water splashes, and I wonder if it’s from wet hands (the towel hangs nearby). They wipe off easily with no discolouration beneath, so I don’t think they are coming out of the door/wall.
We are on UK mains water, and nobody in the house is or has been a smoker (house has been in the family for 40 years). It’s a mystery to me.
It certainly doesn’t look like mould to me, and it wipes off much more easily than other bathroom mould I’ve encountered. It looks just like dried splashes of liquid - you can even see the shape of the droplets where they have run down the door. I just don’t know why they’re brown!
BTW - I would doubt that it’s related to condensation, as surely any coloured impurities in the water would be left behind when the water evaporated. So I think it must be either liquid water splashes, or, if it is to do with condensation, it’s something in the wall/door/ceiling that is leaching out when water condenses on it.
Don’t know if it’s the same problem, but I have what looks like mustard yellow drops and drips that appear on my bathroom door. Nothing on the ceiling, only on the door. And only on the door, not in corners or base boards or anywhere you’d expect mold to appear in a steamy bathroom. Wipes off easily, but always comes back. Doesn’t look like any mold I’ve ever seen, and like I said, only appears on the door.
I don’t have a fan in my bathroom, so my assumption is that the latex paint used on the bathroom door wasn’t allowed to dry completely or that drying completely wasn’t really possible since my house is kind of damp in general.
But it is the weirdest thing. It’s like an episode of The Amityville Horror with demonic looking liquids apparently springing forth from the door itself and dripping down in a creepy way.
Considered calling a priest, but decided to treat with Windex instead of Holy Water.
Eureka! I bet this is it!!! Both houses I’ve lived in that have had this problem were freshly painted before I moved in with latex paint. OK, so if I scrub down the walls and ceiling with Windex or something, that should take care of it, right? I’ve been wiping it down with just a dry cloth or a water-dampened one, as the stuff comes off easily. Funny thing is, I live in a fairly dry climate. But both moves happened in winter, so my guess is the paint just didn’t dry. Thank you!!!
