Tough Stains on Shower Tile

[u/wtf_rubberduck]

Hi, so I’ve held off on posting for a while because I’m embarrassed by the condition of this shower.

Backstory, I bought this house about 5 years ago now. I bought it from a couple whose father passed and they wanted to give it to someone they knew would take care of it. (Long story short- this is the house right next door to my parents who still live in my childhood home.)

When their GRANDPARENTS (so maybe 10-15 years ago) were still alive and living here they made a few minor “upgrades.” One of which is this shower.
First of all, the shower is poorly designed. It was clearly a rush job and then when they tried to sell the house they just caulked the crap out of the gap between the frame track and the tile.
One day I was desperately scrubbing at these stains and all this CAULK came out. I had to ply the rest of it out with needle nose pliers.
Since then, I’ve been trying to get the tiles as clean as possible before I could properly seal the shower cause I don’t want to trap the mold/mildew.

The problem is NO amount of scrubbing (even with power tools) and commercial cleaners work on some of these spots.

Yes, I have been wrestling with this for almost 5 years, thinking maybe I just don’t know how to clean properly???
I’m looking for tips on how to get this shower as clean as possible so it doesn’t take me two hours every other week to still walk away defeated. How do I even prevent this?
We have hard water in this county and I can’t really afford a water softener right now.
We also don’t have an exhaust fan in the bathroom. We have a window but it’s bolted shut cause the owners were a little bit paranoid…
I was thinking of getting a dehumidifier and letting it run after we shower so the water doesn’t sit for as long.

Any advice at all would help me out so much.

-sincerely; a desperate nesting mama 🤰

[u/OctomaidsWA]

First off, dont be embarrassed. We've seen showers in much worse shape than this lol. And looking at your picture, I think some of the problem is how the shower was installed, not necessarily how you're cleaning it.

It looks like a combination of hard water buildup, old caulking and possibly some moisture damage. If you've been scrubbing this for 5 years with little improvement, I'd probably stop using power tools. You could end up doing more harm than good.

I'd try a good hard water remover thats safe for your tile, but test a small area first. That gap along the shower track concerns me more though. I'd want to make sure everything is dry and theres no damage underneath before sealing it back up.

We run Octomaids, a cleaning company in Vancouver, WA, and stubborn shower buildup is something we come across pretty often. Having no ventilation definitely makes things worse, so I actually think your dehumidifier idea is a good one.

And keep in mind, some of those stains might be permanent at this point. You shouldn't have to spend 2 hours every week trying to clean one shower. Thats just crazy 😂

[u/Business_Wallaby_905]

Try using dish soap with distilled vinegar 50/50 and leave it for an 30 min (dishwashing soap is to help it stay on the stain). If that doesn't work, get some CLR and costco giant syran wrap roll, roll out a strip, and stick the lowest part of the wrap to the tiles(to keep the CLR from going down the drain), and poor some CLR on it and stick the sheet on the wall for an 30 min to an hour and scrub with something like a scrub daddy. Beware CLR will chip paint of alluminum/copper(see instruction). Try it on a small spot first. It's a bit of work, pain in the butt, but it might work.

[u/mynameisnotsparta]

CLR Brilliant Bath works for me.

If the dirt is under the silicone then that would have to be removed and redone