I had a nephew who stayed with us when he was in his late teens. We had to throw out the sheets, pillows, mattress protecters. blankets, towels...even after they were washed religiously his body odor and the stains he left were unimaginable.

I have a version of Febreze that is hypoallergenic and unscented. Most odor eliminating sprays are simply enzymes, not noxious chemicals, I believe. The scents are usually more of a concern, since there is little to no regulation of what can be used as 'fragrance'.

If it were mine, I would spray the mattress with a nontoxic odor eliminator and allow it to dry out, as per directions.

You might try washing the linens with white vinegar or borax, if the smell is still lingering in those.

As a former teenage boy, I'm greatly amused and not at all offended by your questions.

We have children of both genders, multiple ones, and I can't say that we experienced what you're describing with the articles of either gender. I think personal odors do vary from individual to individual, and also can vary seasonally (summer vs winter) and with the frequencies of physical activity, personal bathing, and the laundering of their articles. I hope you get your problem resolved.

Try putting out activated charcoal. Good luck, I had to paint and replace carpet and beds. Teenage boys are gross.

Not sure if this will help but I found it a little interesting. People who eat two or three cloves of garlic a day don't seem to get the funky body odour at least not from underarms etc. No guarantee you won't get funky mouth odour.

For the funky mouth odour it is suggested you eat parsley. Particularly the stems. :-)

https://www.gq.com/story/garlic-smell-better-women-study

Baking soda really does neutralize odors. You might try putting out a few bowls of Arm and Hammer around the room. There are also a number of houseplants that are effective at neutralizing odors.

The Febreze that Carolb mentioned does a very good job and doesn't cause any chemical or odor reactions for me, and I am generally pretty sensitive to those things.

Also, you might try sprinkling baking soda lightly over the bare mattress and leaving it set over night, then vacuuming it thoroughly.

Rusty

This is the best!

https://www.pureayre.com/

It gets rid of cat pee 100%. Sure, other products promised that and I tried them all.

This works on any funky odor there is. It is so safe you could spray it in your mouth like they did in the demo on SharkTank. Get the big jug.

Is the odor in curtains or rugs? Maybe you need to play detective?

Not sure where the smell is coming from. Opening the window seemed to help a lot. I closed it and will go back in after the duvet covers are done drying. I have the pillows in the washing machine now. Last thing to go in washer will be the throw blankets. There are not rugs or carpet in the room.

Isn’t that a funny thing? One of my boys had it, the other didn’t. what helped? The one graduated and moved out!

Elizabeth....I ordered a spray bottle of it. Thanks! ♥ I have a renter who's got 2 cats, One isn't using the cat box. I'll need it at some point in time. :0) I usually use a scented Febreeze, I hate perfumed cars or rooms. This sounds like a better option.

All pet supply stores - like Petco, Petsmart, and independents - carry products that immediately neutralize and remove odors of pet excrement and other things. I haven't see any universal ones, different formulas target different sources. My favorites are the skunk-smell removal products. They work instantly on contact, with spray on water soluble solutions that are safe and don't stain. If you've ever had a dog sprayed after a skunk encounter, the instant effectiveness of such products is something to experience. Or not , good to have it on hand for human use too. The urine ones work the same way.

No magic involved - all the ones I've used have specific enzymes that break down the targeted odor compounds on contact. Which does what are well known, so there are many different brands to choose from that all work.

Ha! Sushipup, you just reminded me that my sister loves to give me clothes, and also loves perfumes and it takes me 3-4 washings to get the smell out of things. I am not a fan of strong perfumes.

Febreze is too wimpy, Nicole. You will love Pureayre. It has just the tiniest bit of a mint smell to it. The odors do not return!

Well, the smell is back after having the window closed. I am going to wash the throw blankets tomorrow or the next day. Had to stop to wash my clothes since I go back to work tomorrow. I think I'll try the Pureayre.

Sushipup, yes Axe is horrible, the shampoo, body wash, etc...

I would spray the mattress and any other fabrics that you can't with a mixture of half white vinegar and half water and let it dry. The vinegar smell will go away along with many odors.

There is nothing that will remove the odor of dog urine from carpet, and we tried everything when we bought our house in Los Angeles, starting with having the carpets professionally cleaned. I also tried Nok-Out, which seemed to work slightly, but I had to live with the nauseating smell of dog urine in my bedroom for months until it finally went away on its own.

The previous owners were irresponsible dog owners, and it was disclosed that the smell was there, even though there were powerful deodorizing scents used in the house every time that we viewed it up until we closed on the house. We also requested that the owners remove the smell before they left, but they admitted that it was impossible. We took up the carpet where there was hardwood underneath and had the hardwood repaired, but my bedroom in in the 1996 addition to the house and did not have hardwood under the carpet.

Good luck with removing the odor. You might want to try Nok-Out, but as I said, it was relatively ineffective on the dog urine in my carpet.

To this day, I do not allow any dogs in my house, and if someone comes to the house with a dog, I make them go through the side gate into the back yard and quarantine the dog there. However, neither my house nor my yard is dog friendly. Random cats come into my back yard, and I am okay with that, however.

I believe the teenage boy smell is hormonal. I work in a high school (here it's Yrs 7-12) and often when you walk into a classroom after a class that has had a large proportion of teenage boys, the funky smell nearly knocks you over.

Story: My GF has a huge/4700 sq ft rental. The newly divorced lady renter, for her 6 month walk through, answered the door.....drum roll please.....DRUNK "and" NAKED! She had a large dog that she never let outside, that had pooped ALL over the green carpet downstairs, about 1600sq feet. She used Natures Miracle. Spent hours with the carpet shampooer. After two months...she felt she was able to rent it out. (She had to evict the tenant)

Think I'll prepare for the worst and...yes....I ordered a bottle of Pure Ayre. Ebay.

I think that it must be the funky hormomal induced oils from a male. I remember my older brothers having a smell of that nature.

When hubs was a young man he would leave an impression on the side of the bed where he slept and his side would be where the sheets would wear out.

At one point his sheets looked like the shroud of Turin and you could almost see his image right there.

About that bedding...it might be a good idea to keep your mattresses and pillows covered in a zippered protective cover. They are relativly inexpensive and could be changed out for a new person. Also, pillows are so personal. I have never understood the acceptance of using someone else's pillows. If we travel by car, I always take my own pillows. Otherwise I take my own pillow covers. If it is close friends or relatives it is not so important, but a hotel room is gross and you never know who did what with the pillow and you probalby dont want to consider what that was. UGH!!!

I hate staying in hotels where it feels as if I am sharing a bed with varied strangers.

In re: Lars' comments, when there is a great extent of urine damage, you have to completely saturate the affected area and it has to dry out completely to remove the odor, and for extreme cases, it may take several tries and whole bottles of the product. It can take days for it to completely dry out. It's the evaporation process that removes the odor, I believe.

I've dealt with cat urine on a foam cushion that was soaked through. It took a number of treatments, since the foam is like a sponge - and I imagine carpet padding would be similar.

I'm sure this situation is not as extreme. There might be something that was sweated on that's being missed...

I think many people make a mistake by just using a gently spray on the enzyme cleaner. Soak it.

I agree with Carol and Elizabeth. All the different enzyme products work very well but you need to use them very generously. In cases where urine has soaked into a porous material, whether like a wood floor or subfloor or whatever, penetration of the product through cracks into nooks and crannies of inner areas may not happen enough or be effective and the smell could remain.

I ordered the Pureayre from Chewy last night. It has already shipped! I love Chewy.

Take all the blankets and stuff out of the room, air it out and close it back up and see if still smells after that.

I'm not taking the bedding off the beds again. I've rewashed everything already and only have the throw blankets to do. I will spray it with the Pureayre and if that doesn't work, after I mop then I guess the kid who picks that room will have to live with the smell.

If this doesn't work and the smell persists, you could consider getting allergy encasement covers for the mattress (and one for the box spring if you have one) because the smell has probably been absorbed into them both. It would seal the smell into the bed and prevent this from happening in the future.

encasement covers

My guess is that it's in the mattress. Maybe he sweated through the sheets and it got absorbed if there isn't a waterproof cover on it.

My guess would be that there is sweat involved, too. I, too, would encase all the bedding in zippered moisture proof covers. That really keeps things clean.

Can someone explain how Febreze works? Does it anesthetize your ability to detect the odor, rather than actually remove the source of the odor? Am I confusing it with another early 'odor remover' product?

I tried it once to freshen throw pillows at our Maui condo, but had better success spraying them well with white vinegar.

Chisue, here's what I found on how Febreze works: https://www.thoughtco.com/how-febreze-works-facts-and-chemistry-606149

And this from Wikipedia, explaining how cyclodextrin works: "Cyclodextrins bind fragrances. Such devices are capable of releasing fragrances during ironing or when heated by human body. Such a device commonly used is a typical 'dryer sheet'. The heat from a clothes dryer releases the fragrance into the clothing. They are the main ingredient in Febreze which claims that the β-cyclodextrins "trap" odor causing compounds, thereby reducing the odor."

The spray came today. I just sprayed the entire room, including inside the closet just for the heck of it.

So, I've sprayed everything in the room twice now and the smell is still there. I sprayed it for a third time even opening the drawers under the beds and spraying in them. I'm going to rewash all the bedding again with vinegar, although, I don't think it's the bedding. Not really sure where it is coming from. I'm also going to saturate the mattresses with the Pureayre and mop with vinegar and water.

Just took off all the bedding again and saturated both mattresses. I think it may be the newer mattress that is I think latex. Spongy ones that are shipped rolled up and compacted. I threw away the mattress pads and will buy new ones.

It's surely the mattress. If the spray doesn't do the trick, try the encasement covers.

Olychick, those mattress covers are so expensive. These kids are only here for a school year. I found a packet of two twin sized ones on Amazon for the price of one of the expensive encasement ones, including 2 day shipping on Amazon! I may just throw out the mattress if this doesn't work. Won't need it unless my cousin decides to come for a visit next year or the year after with her grown daughter and granddaughter. I'll just buy a new mattress then if I have to.

The other room has a double sized bed in it so each exchange student will have their own bed, so the second twin isn't needed right now.