[leslie28]

We live in an apartment above the maintenance garage in our apartment complex and have had issues for the past few months with a gasoline smell coming from our walk-in closet (where the electric hot water heater is) and under both our kitchen and bathroom sinks. Maintenance for the complex has been here several times and even the fire department to check for any gas leaks though we didn't see how that would be possible since everything is electric. The problem is basically solved under the sinks due to caulking around the pipes, but caulking around the water heater is not working. We air the closet out and it smells better, but close the door and overnight the smell builds up again. What do we do? We figure it must be the maintenance garage w/ all of their equipment and such but they say they have never had this problem before. Please help!

[tkrussell]

Your assumption that fumes are coming from the equipment store below sounds very feasible.

The fire dept needs to have a sniffer that can detect gasoline.

Perhaps they can inject something that they can detect.

Seems there is an opening in the wall or ceiling finish in the garage that is allowing fumes to rise into your space.

The issue to be most concerned about is carbon monoxide, which you will not be able to smell.

Perhaps the city building dept can help, this issue needs to be found and corrected.

[pearldiver]

Check and see if there is any kind of drain in the garage floor or sinks. If so, pour water in it, like over a gallon. The reason is, that if there is a drain, the trap water may have evaporated in there, and you may be smelling the raw drain gasses coming up through the pipe. Check all the water drains, especially ones that have not been used within a week or so. I usually add a bit of bleach to make the smell go away. Just a tiny bit of bleach, and lemon juice works too.

[leslie28]

Thank you both so much for your responses. We are having the city building inspector come out to see what the problem is and see if there is a solution.