Water smells like rotten eggs

I just moved into a new townhome and the water, and now the townhome, smells like rotten eggs. I'm familiar with such a smell with well water but I'm in midtown Houston so I'd be pretty damn shocked if I was on well water. Any tips on getting rid of this or should I just go ahead and be a pain in my landlord's *** from day one and make him take care of it?

 

That smell usually comes from having some sulphur content in the water. Like you said, it's common for well-water, but I would not expect Houston municipal water to have sulphur in it.

Can you check with your neighbors to see if they have the same problem?

I can understand not wanting to bug your landlord from day one, but this is not normal and something will need to be done about it. It definitely shouldn't cost YOU any money.

 

Houston uses a mix of surface water and groundwater and they always have taste and odor problems around this time of year. I would still ask your neighbors just in case it is isolated to your home.

 

I had the same problem when I moved into my apartment in April. It stunk so bad, even the dishwasher smelled bad. The apt. office said it was normal if the water hadn't been run in a while. I just turned on all the faucets for a few minutes and it was gone.

 

or you might havea methlab in the building...

 

Same thing happened with our house when we first moved in. Strong and infiltrated the whole house. We had some people come check it out and they couldn't do anything about it. After a week's use though, it went away. Could be that the water has been sitting for a while and just needs to be flushed. Try to endure it for a few days and see if goes away.

 

Thanks. Upon further investigation, I've determined that it's only the hot water that smells so I'm assuming water just sat in the hot water heater for a long time and some bacteria developed. I'll just run the **** out of the hot water and see if that does the trick.

 

when it's just the hot water it usually will be solved by drianing the tank down (or running it continuously for some time). if not, the anode rod for the heater might be bad and needs to be replaced.

 

Yep, I had to replace that rod once, and that did the trick.