How Do You Keep Your Bathroom from Looking and Smelling like a Truck Stop?

I keep Lysol or Clorox wipes in every bathroom so I can just grab one or two and go over trouble spots whenever I'm in there. You can wipe down a toilet and a sink with two wipes in two minutes!

I have a spray bottle with a mixture of water, eucalyptus oil and water that I spray on the floor around the base of the toilet (three little boys) once a day. It has really kept the smell and germs down. I also use it to wipe off the toilet weekly.

My cat was a big mess maker. It would kick the litter out of the tray and all over the place! So I placed the shallow litter tray into a plastic storage box which the cat can jump in and out of, but can't kick the litter out of.

Mine is usually embarrassing, but I tend to check it out when I get home from work because I use it. My downstairs bath is off the kitchen (it's a half-bath) so nobody sees my full bath (upstairs). It smells better since we tossed the diaper pail and throw diapers straight out to the can. It is often gross since my oldest seems to get stool on his fingers (not sure how) and then try to wipe it off discreetly (all over the sides of the bowl) and I seem to be the only person who notices. The other night as soon as I got home from work my 3-year-old decided to flood the whole thing. That got the floor clean at least. I try to keep minimal things in that bathroom to keep it easier to clean, but that won't work with a full bath.

I also found that if things are always dropped somewhere it is sometimes easier to put something there to catch stuff rather than try to make people NOT drop it (so add a narrow, flat basket behind the door if people always drop PJs and wet towels there, etc.).

Otherwise, I'd say embrace your truck stop. I have 3 boys and a husband and we work full-time, so my house only looks really nice when my in-laws visit, and that is only because they team up and clean it while I'm at work. :)

have your *boys* sit down to pee, that helps ALOT

This is where i feel lucky to have all girls...lol! I do use clorox wipes in there for daily cleanups. Our issue is frequent trash can changes with the girly issues.

Many years back when my son was little he would play about in the bathroom and there would be urine on the floor. Mind you I had just cleaned up the bath and wiped down all the places. So I made him clean the toilet thoroughly to my inspection. He somehow figured how to make sure all the pee went in the bowl from there on in. Also check where the tank sits on the toilet and wash that down good also.

Good luck to you eliminating the trucker bath odor.

The other S.

I think actually working full time is in your favor!! Seriously less time to mess it up! My bath with the litter box is off of the laundry room as well, gotta scoop it daily. Is this a male thing?? It's pretty easy with just a girl.

Wipe down counters CONSTANTLY.

Spray when someone goes you-know-what! ha ha

I wipe down the mirrors constantly. You'd think teens & grown ups would
know how to bruch their teeth w/o getting splatter on the mirror. Argh. ;)

I windex the mirrors every day.

Turn on the fan for those trucker "drops in the toilet".

I wipe out the tub every day since my son takes a bath.

Give up on spotless and go for presentable.

That's the only way I've been able to keep my sanity!!! Argh. :)

I only have one and when I am in there I just wipe the counters off. If there is anything on the floor I wipe it up. Other than that it gets scrubbed once a week, but I have three girls and don't have to worry about them missing.

I work homeso I have the 'luxury' of cleaning our bathrooms every day. That way they are never too messy to spend too much time.It takes me 10 min per bathroom (I have 4 bathrooms). So it's not bad. I am a neat freak otherwise so that explains it.

I have the same set up minus the cat and we do not seem to have any issues. Do you keep the door open or closed? I keep them open and allow air to flow thru constantly. I keep candles in the bathrooms and light during shower/baths and once a day otherwise. My son still sits to pee so not mess there (his choice) and my hunny knows how to clean after himself. Honestly, if the pee is in the toilet and it has fresh air then I do not see any issues for "Trucker Bathroom"

Instead of trying to mop the floor often enough, I keep those sanitizing wipes in the bathroom and just use one or two to wipe the floor around the toilet. I havent figured out the cat litter box problem yet, I'm thinking of putting some type of rough rug in front of the litter box, maybe my hubby could cut a mat in half to make it a good size, waiting for a good suggestion!

The only thing you can do is let go of your ideals, unless you want to spend every day slaving away in there like a crazy person, as other moms have suggested, who probably do not work full time. I work part time, have one boy, and sometimes I feel like I am supermom if I manage to feed him, clean him, and run the dishwasher before the nights end. If we are lucky we get to the playground or do an activity - usually at the expense of one of the above chores. Like other posters said, our house only looks presentable when we have visitors which we dont have often for this reason. If someone unexpectedly shows up, I will often run into the bathroom and do a quick wipedown. My bathroom is really small so the good thing is it's easy to clean, the bad thing is it gets dirty faster. It really bothers me as a woman that, no matter how much (or little) my husband helps out around the house, we women are always delegated to the real "dirty work." I can count the times, if ever, that he emptied the diaper pale and wiped it down. Or cleaned the toilet? Ha! Never. And he is mostly the one making it dirty. He won't scrub the bathroom, unclog drains, rinse out our son's undies when there has been an accident. He doesn't even like to take out the trash. I think men have it programmed into their head that we are the maids. Even when I am most grateful for all the help I get from him, I still grumble about this issue. It's not that I mind doing these dirty tasks that much, I just don't think it's right or fair. I know, I know, life isn't fair.

The bathroom in my old house always stunk of stale male urine unless I mopped daily. I don't know why this doesn't happen as much in our new bathroom, but my guess is that the flooring is different. Do you have tile floors? Thats what I had in my old place. Now we have linoleum tiles or something like that and it isn't so bad. I found that if I don't have time to mop constantly, spraying a paper towel and wiping around the toilet especially the floor really helps the odor.
Good luck!

Line the floor around the toilet w/newspaper.

Use new reeds w/a reed diffuser filled w/vinegar and leave in the bathroom. The vinegar will eat up the odor.

It doesn't take thorough cleaning every day to keep your bathroom clean...just a little here and there. Wipe the sink after you wash hands/brush teeth. Clean up obvious messes on the floor as they happen. At least once or twice a week, fully clean the bathroom.

That's all I do, and my bathroom neither looks nor smells like a truck stop.