Pinkish orange water marks?

[AmyMCGS]

We live in a new house... it's less than two years old.

However, since we've lived here, we've had a weird pinkish-orange colored stains show up in the shower and toilets. The downstairs toilet rarely gets used, and if it's sat for a week or more without being used, there will be an orange-ish ring in the toilet. Sometimes there are also orange streaks inside the bowl where the water comes down into the bowl. Same in the showers- sometimes in the corner of the one shower stall there's a orange/pink stain that doesn't easily come up. If I scrub with bleach (or bleach toilet cleaner) it does go away, but then returns a week or so later.

I don't think this is a mold or mildew or anything like that... these areas are cleaned with bleach regularly. And since these stains show up when the toilet isn't being used often, I don't think it's a cleanliness issue.

I'm also assuming that it can't be rust in the pipes, since they're so new, and I think most of them are not metal (PVC?) anyways. I guess I should check into that.

We've lived in this same city for seven years, and never had this problem at our other homes.

Any ideas what this is or how to prevent it?

[Sara]

Sounds like hard water stains. Possibly iron or other mineral buildup. You can go to home depot or similar type store and inquire about removal products.

[AmyMCGS]

Sounds like hard water stains. Possibly iron or other mineral buildup. You can go to home depot or similar type store and inquire about removal products.

I didn't realize hard water could do that... and we definitely have hard water. I'll check into it- thanks!

[Sara]

You can try the product called kaboom bowl blaster. See how that works.

[o-mama]

We had the same problems in our house (we're the original owners). It has to do with the water, but I never got around to having our's tested. I use the Clorox drop-ins for the toilet--a trick I picked up on in Phoenix to keep sewer roaches from coming in as frequently. I never got consistent with wiping down our shower or spraying it with any of the 'clean shower' products available so I don't know if those would be an adequate solution. Comet did wonderfully though when time came available to clean it. :rolleyes: