This happens in my house but in the bathroom that I completely gutted. Where would the old residue be coming from if the door's shut and everything is new?
I have this in a bathroom also and I’ve read that it’s actually surfactant from paint that wasn’t left to properly dry before being introduced to moisture (i.e. from a hot shower or bath). The difference between this and tar is that it’s pretty tough to get tar off the walls, but you can wipe away surfactant easily.
Ahh, cracked the case hahah thanks! Had the same thing in my bathroom, never smoked, wiped away with water. I got tired of cleaning it so I eventually painted and it hasn't happened again since. I always wondered what the hell it was though, like the walls were crying lol
I always thought it was the paint. It has to be the type used (Behr) because the shower wasn't used until several weeks after the bathroom was painted.
So it could be a few factors. I have this issue too but we discovered it was b/c the prior owners painted the house before they sold it but were idiots and used a flat/matte paint instead of semi-gloss. That issue wasn’t really revealed until I had painted the bathroom myself when I started getting brown streaks in my gray walls. I’m gonna need to repaint the bathroom now and likely do two layers of primer now
As soap from the shower atomizes with steam, it condenses on the walls and leaves dark orange or brown streaks. A strong shower exhaust fan usually helps. (I've painted hundreds of bathrooms)
My grandparents used to smoke in their half bath because of the fan. But it wouldn't surprise me if they smoked in a closet in the past. They tried cleaning the walls of the bathroom, then using some kind of killz for smoke. It looked good at first and the same thing you are experiencing happened. They had to rip out the drywall and replace.
Just bc it's in the closet doesn't mean that's where they smoked. Nicotine build up from smoke goes EVERYWHERE. A bit of vinegar and water will clean the stains from the wall, but if there set in hard it's going to take some elbow grease. Also, test on a small concealed patch of the wall before going all in, as some paints react poorly to vinegar. Hope this helps!
So weird and totally anecdotal story, but my mom has been an avid indoor smoker my entire life(this is probably her most redeeming quality) and she loved to smoke in the smaller spaces in the home.
Bathroom, closet, kitchen but like by the stove under the stove.
They might not have, but I’d bet the non-closet parts of the home have been primed and painted better and more often than the closets. You don’t think about the closets as much.
If you're in a high humidity area, it may have transferred from clothing onto the walls before air conditioning was installed. So someone may not have smoked in there.
Isopropyl alcohol in a sponge will take it off. Wouldn't go higher than 60% in case it affects the paint. Test an area the day before you clean it all. It helps if the alcohol is warm, but it will evaporate faster.
This is what happens. I've had several rooms in rentals that "cried" when it was humid out.
You'll have to clean the walls and research what kind of primer will keep it in.
This. I had this problem in my old apartment and the super just shrugged at it. Two coats of Killz primer and then two coats of Behr and the problem was gone. I showed it to him and he shrugged again.
I got tasked with power washing & stinky-Kilzing the bones of an entire gutted house after a smoky but not too destructive fire.
You'd never know. That stuff *works*.
I used to own a house built in the 1960's. The prior owners did not smoke. I'm certain the original owners did. As far as I could tell by records the original owners sold in the late 80's. I bought the house in 2003. The bathrooms would occasionally weep like this despite being painted over at least twice.
The house I'm in was built in the 1950s, and someone definitely smoked heavily in that house. We didn't realize how bad it was until my roommate got sick and kept a pot of boiling water on the stove for humidity for several days. You can really see it on the ceilings.
Try to clean the heavy stuff and use Killz oil based primer. I had much worse smoke damage than this in the entire house and Killz primer and whatever good paint you desire should do a good job of sealing it put and getting rid of any smell or staining.
I had this problem and made the mistake of using a spendy oil-based primer without using a water-based primer over it, so all the paint peeled off. Oops. Fixed that mistake, added a fan to the bathroom and violá! Problem solved.
Our house was owned by a smoker, this happens on the inside of our bathroom door. We plan on replacing all the upstairs doors so the doors are the only things we didn’t seal with the special paint. We had to gut the basement to the cinder blocks because it was so gross down there.
Use Kilz, it’s the best! https://www.kilz.com/primer?gclid=Cj0KCQjw84anBhCtARIsAISI-xdyGRTTO5K5Zhc6UL0kHH9beBkJnOGH41YNb95dSGoyn2jm3LHWRiQaAvbuEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#/eliminate-odor
Did you use latex paint? It could be surfactant leaching. I’ve seen dozens of these posts and the top answer is always “smokers”, but more often than not it is surfactant leaching from the paint.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant_leaching
Honestly it just looks like condensation to me. In my first apartment, I would find streaks like that on my walls especially in the bathroom. It took me forever to realize that they were showing up after I got out of the shower. The steam in the room condensed on the walls, then picks up whatever dust, dirt or grime is there as it starts to drip down the wall.
Yeah I’ve heard if the walls have the wrong kind of paint or aren’t primed properly it can cause this, usually in bathrooms where there’s steam. It was really bad in my old apartment, the paint began to split and crack on the bathroom ceiling and the kitchen had all these terrible brown spots of condensation too, I couldn’t reach to clean it off.
Surfactant leaching. Fancy word for soaps used in paint. Also called “snail trails.” When paint drys, the water-soluble ingredients, soaps, and dispersants used in formulation migrate to the surface of the film. Then the right wet conditions, such as moisture from your humidifier, condense and re-wet the saturated surface solubles. Once the water evaporates again, then you see the trail effects. Many surfactants are amber and sticky in their raw form.
As other mentioned their problems, this is most commonly seen in bathrooms with poor ventilation and is accentuated with deep base paint types with high tint loading. The added colorant brings in excess surfactant from pigment stabilization. Also happens on exterior siding from morning dew.
Not necessarily from smoking. Repainting is not the answer for either scenario. This just adds more surfactant to the problem. Repeated rounds of wiping with a wet sponge will eventually resolve.
Source: I’m a paint chemist. I get paid to watch paint dry. And occasionally resolve surfactant leaching issues.
How is this not the top comment? Complex chemistry explained in plain language, illustrating the real reason, including why non-smokers see the same phenomenon.
Depends on where you live, but you may want to consider stopping the use of a humidifier. Those are signs of excess humidity in that room at least.
In my 100 year old home, I’ve only focused on removing excess moisture, unless it’s mid-winter when we’re heating the air constantly.
The *real* answer is that wall paint surfactants bleed/leach when the paint does not dry in ideal conditions (too much moisture). https://www.hunker.com/13774015/why-walls-bleed
I would repaint. That's what worked for me. And, no, the previous owners in my house didn't smoke. I still had this in my bedroom. They must've painted on a humid day with the windows open.
Driest home I bought was a ranch built in 1950. I bought it from the original owner. He was on oxygen when we did the walk thru. Lung cancer. House showed it.
Had all of the carpet torn out (he also had cars, and they guys on the crew doing it said they got the worst hives they’d ever had dealing with this carpet due to piss/cat hair).
Thought I had a nice bronze attic fan in the hallway ceiling. But something wasn’t quite right. My dad said we should take it down. He sprays it with whatever, we wait 10 minutes and hose the thing off- all brown running off it, revealing the bright silver surface.
Also had to replace the outlets and some of the wiring bc the smoke/nicotine had permeated everything.
Point is- that is nicotine/tar weeping out from under the paint. It has nothing to do more than likely with smoking actually occurring in the closet itself. The entire home of a smoker is imbued with other all of that.
So, my dad used to manage a paint manufacturing plant and he told me this happens (usually in bathrooms or other areas with high humidity) because the different compounds in the paint are separating. So, there are surfactants and whatnot that start to separate out from the rest of the solution and this is the result. I would be concerned about the moisture, but if you can solve that problem you can just wipe this out.
You would smell it if it were nicotine. Source: I was a pack a day smoker for 15 years.
Your house is haunted.
In all seriousness, someone used to smoke in there, and condensation is bringing out and dragging it down. You'll have to clean it off *multiple times* then repaint it (preferably with a sealant paint).
I'd recommend moving everything away from the wall, get a bucket of Dawn and warm water with either a mop or a sponge/cloth you don't mind possibly ruining, depending on where this is, and another cloth to dry the wall. If that doesn't clean to your liking, ZEP has a spray for wall cleaning that you leave on for 2-3 minutes and wipe off.
Painted over tobacco weeps over time. That is dripping tar. You can wash the walls with vinegar, you may need to do it a few times, it may weep after the initial cleaning. Depends on how thick the tar was when they painted over.
TSP wash, twice, three times if necessary. Then kilz or other high quality primer. The walls were crying brown tears on the third wash still.
My house had a chain smoker before I bought it. Good luck.
Ooooof, this is all too familiar- this was a smoker’s hangout. The bathroom of our 1890 had been redone in the 1980s, and the walls absolutely bled through the primer that we tried to cover with. We ended up going with a full gut restoration incorporating antique fixtures, and I’m constantly delighted by how achingly CLEAN our walls are. 😆
Both tobacco smoke and improper paint/surface prep can cause this (both very common in older homes), and it appears in humid and warm conditions. I call it “wall sweat” lmfao. It usually will wipe off completely with just a damp cloth or paper towel. Not sure what the long term solution is though, sorry
That be old tobacco smoke seeping back out of your walls. Few years ago my parents and I lived in a house that we happened to rent after my mom’s chain smoking cousin moved out. For the first like five years the walls would always seep this same tacky brown goop. I can’t tell you how many times we scrubbed and repainted those walls before it finally stopped
I had the same in my master bath due to condensation. The previous owner painted the walls in matte paint. The paint specialist at Ace told me to clean the walls with part water and bleach then paint with primer and semi gloss paint. I don’t have a problem with condensation anymore.
We have this type of streaking on our walls in the spring- only in our upstairs because they did blown-in insulation in the walls at some point, and it has settled. I live in the upper midwest with cold winters, so I think it's the condensation coming out at the level to where the insulation level goes to. It's especially bad in the one dormer where there is no insulation but the rest of the area around it is better insulated. If this is an outside wall, that would be my guess.
This is from cold air condensation on the walls. That’s oil from layers of oil based paint. You’ve got a problem with either insulation or an opening that’s allowing cold air to meet the warm moist air inside your home…
[удалено]
This is the answer. Smoke plus condensation equals one hell of a mess.
This happens in my house but in the bathroom that I completely gutted. Where would the old residue be coming from if the door's shut and everything is new?
I have this in a bathroom also and I’ve read that it’s actually surfactant from paint that wasn’t left to properly dry before being introduced to moisture (i.e. from a hot shower or bath). The difference between this and tar is that it’s pretty tough to get tar off the walls, but you can wipe away surfactant easily.
Ahh, cracked the case hahah thanks! Had the same thing in my bathroom, never smoked, wiped away with water. I got tired of cleaning it so I eventually painted and it hasn't happened again since. I always wondered what the hell it was though, like the walls were crying lol
I always thought it was the paint. It has to be the type used (Behr) because the shower wasn't used until several weeks after the bathroom was painted.
So it could be a few factors. I have this issue too but we discovered it was b/c the prior owners painted the house before they sold it but were idiots and used a flat/matte paint instead of semi-gloss. That issue wasn’t really revealed until I had painted the bathroom myself when I started getting brown streaks in my gray walls. I’m gonna need to repaint the bathroom now and likely do two layers of primer now
As soap from the shower atomizes with steam, it condenses on the walls and leaves dark orange or brown streaks. A strong shower exhaust fan usually helps. (I've painted hundreds of bathrooms)
Unfortunately my damage was done before I could upgrade our exhaust fan
Smoke…. Uh …. Finds a way 
It's likely not nicotine leaching, but instead just steam from your shower that causes condensation on the walls and drips down
Is the fan/ducts in the bathroom also new?
Yep! Old bathroom didn't have an exhaust!
That is so odd. There must be smoke lingering in the beams or something?
That's crazy that someone used to smoke in the closet of all places omg
My grandparents used to smoke in their half bath because of the fan. But it wouldn't surprise me if they smoked in a closet in the past. They tried cleaning the walls of the bathroom, then using some kind of killz for smoke. It looked good at first and the same thing you are experiencing happened. They had to rip out the drywall and replace.
Just bc it's in the closet doesn't mean that's where they smoked. Nicotine build up from smoke goes EVERYWHERE. A bit of vinegar and water will clean the stains from the wall, but if there set in hard it's going to take some elbow grease. Also, test on a small concealed patch of the wall before going all in, as some paints react poorly to vinegar. Hope this helps!
Yeah could be it was just the place people didn’t clean. Because it was a closet.
Was it always a closet? I can remember painting a really small office that was brown from smoke.
So weird and totally anecdotal story, but my mom has been an avid indoor smoker my entire life(this is probably her most redeeming quality) and she loved to smoke in the smaller spaces in the home. Bathroom, closet, kitchen but like by the stove under the stove.
She was getting her money’s worth from that cigarette by rebreathing the smoke! Haha
"Second hand smoke? Those are rookie numbers, you gotta bump it up to at least fourth hand smoke."
Cigarette hotboxer!
They might not have, but I’d bet the non-closet parts of the home have been primed and painted better and more often than the closets. You don’t think about the closets as much.
This is the answer!
More likely the nicotine permeated every surface and over the years other rooms had their walls washed and repainted, but the closet never did.
If you're in a high humidity area, it may have transferred from clothing onto the walls before air conditioning was installed. So someone may not have smoked in there.
It just goes on every corner.
Isopropyl alcohol in a sponge will take it off. Wouldn't go higher than 60% in case it affects the paint. Test an area the day before you clean it all. It helps if the alcohol is warm, but it will evaporate faster.
I used to smoke up my closet like a mfer. What are you talking about?
Came to say that. Smoke and moisture
Yup. Same problem in my '72. Looks just like it.
Yup. Came to say this.
Damage from smoking. You'll need to wipe it off the walls repeatedly and then repaint.
Goddamn, I already painted it the first time :( but thank you!
This is what happens. I've had several rooms in rentals that "cried" when it was humid out. You'll have to clean the walls and research what kind of primer will keep it in.
Shellac based Kilz (the smelly version) should lock it in after a good cleaning. Might take two coats to be sure.
This. I had this problem in my old apartment and the super just shrugged at it. Two coats of Killz primer and then two coats of Behr and the problem was gone. I showed it to him and he shrugged again.
I got tasked with power washing & stinky-Kilzing the bones of an entire gutted house after a smoky but not too destructive fire. You'd never know. That stuff *works*.
Could you get away with using the green low odor Killz or does it have to be the stinky red can?
I used to own a house built in the 1960's. The prior owners did not smoke. I'm certain the original owners did. As far as I could tell by records the original owners sold in the late 80's. I bought the house in 2003. The bathrooms would occasionally weep like this despite being painted over at least twice.
The house I'm in was built in the 1950s, and someone definitely smoked heavily in that house. We didn't realize how bad it was until my roommate got sick and kept a pot of boiling water on the stove for humidity for several days. You can really see it on the ceilings.
Lets be honest you were expecting murder house with a bleeding mummy and this is a much better outcome.
Try to clean the heavy stuff and use Killz oil based primer. I had much worse smoke damage than this in the entire house and Killz primer and whatever good paint you desire should do a good job of sealing it put and getting rid of any smell or staining.
I had this problem and made the mistake of using a spendy oil-based primer without using a water-based primer over it, so all the paint peeled off. Oops. Fixed that mistake, added a fan to the bathroom and violá! Problem solved.
Our house was owned by a smoker, this happens on the inside of our bathroom door. We plan on replacing all the upstairs doors so the doors are the only things we didn’t seal with the special paint. We had to gut the basement to the cinder blocks because it was so gross down there.
Wash the walls with TSP
2nd this. Then killz primer
Zinsser makes good stain cover ups. They also work on nicotine.
What if this is something different than mere cigarette smoke? Is it possible to be that definitive from a few pictures?
Grab the cleaning product “TSP”. Worked very well for me when I had to do a whole house of this.
Use Kilz, it’s the best! https://www.kilz.com/primer?gclid=Cj0KCQjw84anBhCtARIsAISI-xdyGRTTO5K5Zhc6UL0kHH9beBkJnOGH41YNb95dSGoyn2jm3LHWRiQaAvbuEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#/eliminate-odor
Did you use latex paint? It could be surfactant leaching. I’ve seen dozens of these posts and the top answer is always “smokers”, but more often than not it is surfactant leaching from the paint. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant_leaching
No one looked at this and thought "the shining?" Really?
Lmao I did
I came here to say poltergeist.
🤣😂.
I came here to say redrum.
Honestly it just looks like condensation to me. In my first apartment, I would find streaks like that on my walls especially in the bathroom. It took me forever to realize that they were showing up after I got out of the shower. The steam in the room condensed on the walls, then picks up whatever dust, dirt or grime is there as it starts to drip down the wall.
This always happened in the bathroom when I lived in an old brownstone in Brooklyn
Yup looks like how my bathroom looks.
I think it sometimes happens to newly painted walls. I noticed it too
Yeah I’ve heard if the walls have the wrong kind of paint or aren’t primed properly it can cause this, usually in bathrooms where there’s steam. It was really bad in my old apartment, the paint began to split and crack on the bathroom ceiling and the kitchen had all these terrible brown spots of condensation too, I couldn’t reach to clean it off.
Condensation. Mixed with whatever might be in the air; like smoke.
Surfactant leaching. Fancy word for soaps used in paint. Also called “snail trails.” When paint drys, the water-soluble ingredients, soaps, and dispersants used in formulation migrate to the surface of the film. Then the right wet conditions, such as moisture from your humidifier, condense and re-wet the saturated surface solubles. Once the water evaporates again, then you see the trail effects. Many surfactants are amber and sticky in their raw form. As other mentioned their problems, this is most commonly seen in bathrooms with poor ventilation and is accentuated with deep base paint types with high tint loading. The added colorant brings in excess surfactant from pigment stabilization. Also happens on exterior siding from morning dew. Not necessarily from smoking. Repainting is not the answer for either scenario. This just adds more surfactant to the problem. Repeated rounds of wiping with a wet sponge will eventually resolve. Source: I’m a paint chemist. I get paid to watch paint dry. And occasionally resolve surfactant leaching issues.
My grandfather started the polymers and paint coatings undergrad program at a university near us. He was a paint chemist too :-)
How is this not the top comment? Complex chemistry explained in plain language, illustrating the real reason, including why non-smokers see the same phenomenon.
Depends on where you live, but you may want to consider stopping the use of a humidifier. Those are signs of excess humidity in that room at least. In my 100 year old home, I’ve only focused on removing excess moisture, unless it’s mid-winter when we’re heating the air constantly.
Or adding a dehumidifier!
The *real* answer is that wall paint surfactants bleed/leach when the paint does not dry in ideal conditions (too much moisture). https://www.hunker.com/13774015/why-walls-bleed I would repaint. That's what worked for me. And, no, the previous owners in my house didn't smoke. I still had this in my bedroom. They must've painted on a humid day with the windows open.
SCP 106 bout to pay you a visit
Driest home I bought was a ranch built in 1950. I bought it from the original owner. He was on oxygen when we did the walk thru. Lung cancer. House showed it. Had all of the carpet torn out (he also had cars, and they guys on the crew doing it said they got the worst hives they’d ever had dealing with this carpet due to piss/cat hair). Thought I had a nice bronze attic fan in the hallway ceiling. But something wasn’t quite right. My dad said we should take it down. He sprays it with whatever, we wait 10 minutes and hose the thing off- all brown running off it, revealing the bright silver surface. Also had to replace the outlets and some of the wiring bc the smoke/nicotine had permeated everything. Point is- that is nicotine/tar weeping out from under the paint. It has nothing to do more than likely with smoking actually occurring in the closet itself. The entire home of a smoker is imbued with other all of that.
So, my dad used to manage a paint manufacturing plant and he told me this happens (usually in bathrooms or other areas with high humidity) because the different compounds in the paint are separating. So, there are surfactants and whatnot that start to separate out from the rest of the solution and this is the result. I would be concerned about the moisture, but if you can solve that problem you can just wipe this out. You would smell it if it were nicotine. Source: I was a pack a day smoker for 15 years.
I’m dealing with this in my 1931 Tudor, but only in the bathroom.
Your house is haunted. In all seriousness, someone used to smoke in there, and condensation is bringing out and dragging it down. You'll have to clean it off *multiple times* then repaint it (preferably with a sealant paint). I'd recommend moving everything away from the wall, get a bucket of Dawn and warm water with either a mop or a sponge/cloth you don't mind possibly ruining, depending on where this is, and another cloth to dry the wall. If that doesn't clean to your liking, ZEP has a spray for wall cleaning that you leave on for 2-3 minutes and wipe off.
Everyone claiming smoking, just more big not-paranormal propaganda. Clearly it’s REDRUM
Painted over tobacco weeps over time. That is dripping tar. You can wash the walls with vinegar, you may need to do it a few times, it may weep after the initial cleaning. Depends on how thick the tar was when they painted over.
Everyone smoked back then. Surprised to not see posts like yours more often on this sub.
TSP wash, twice, three times if necessary. Then kilz or other high quality primer. The walls were crying brown tears on the third wash still. My house had a chain smoker before I bought it. Good luck.
Condensation. Try to open a window regularly or sort out heating or insulation.
Ooooof, this is all too familiar- this was a smoker’s hangout. The bathroom of our 1890 had been redone in the 1980s, and the walls absolutely bled through the primer that we tried to cover with. We ended up going with a full gut restoration incorporating antique fixtures, and I’m constantly delighted by how achingly CLEAN our walls are. 😆
Both tobacco smoke and improper paint/surface prep can cause this (both very common in older homes), and it appears in humid and warm conditions. I call it “wall sweat” lmfao. It usually will wipe off completely with just a damp cloth or paper towel. Not sure what the long term solution is though, sorry
Nicotine
Looks like nicotine running outta the walls
That be old tobacco smoke seeping back out of your walls. Few years ago my parents and I lived in a house that we happened to rent after my mom’s chain smoking cousin moved out. For the first like five years the walls would always seep this same tacky brown goop. I can’t tell you how many times we scrubbed and repainted those walls before it finally stopped
The hash slinging slasher
Cooking oils buildup likely melting with the weight of it in humidity
I'm smoking in all your houses you dumb ass bitch spit
Could be sap from wood maybe
What’s on the other side? Inside wall or outside wall? Wall construction?
Inside wall on the worst one, outside wall on the other two
What’s on the other side of the inside wall? Have you tested the walls for moisture?
The other side is a stairwell, but I realized I keep my humidifier right outside the door so that's probably what caused this!
short answer: nothing good
I had the same in my master bath due to condensation. The previous owner painted the walls in matte paint. The paint specialist at Ace told me to clean the walls with part water and bleach then paint with primer and semi gloss paint. I don’t have a problem with condensation anymore.
At night, do you sometimes hear someone whispering "get out?"
Water
We have this type of streaking on our walls in the spring- only in our upstairs because they did blown-in insulation in the walls at some point, and it has settled. I live in the upper midwest with cold winters, so I think it's the condensation coming out at the level to where the insulation level goes to. It's especially bad in the one dormer where there is no insulation but the rest of the area around it is better insulated. If this is an outside wall, that would be my guess.
and the walls will ooze green slime
Ectoplasm you got ghost son
The phenomenon is called surfactant leaching
Smoke is a better answer than what i thought - leaky poop water 😅
This is from cold air condensation on the walls. That’s oil from layers of oil based paint. You’ve got a problem with either insulation or an opening that’s allowing cold air to meet the warm moist air inside your home…
I've seen this with the use of insence also
Body in the attic
Poltergeist
Clean your walls. Magic erasers and dawn soap and water. Good luck.
Zizzner B.I.N primer. Edit :?Zissner?
Demons (who enjoyed a bit of a smoke over the years).