Caulk that blackens again within a few weeks of replacing it is one sign your bathroom needs a closer look. Grout that never truly lightens, no matter how hard you scrub, is another. A soft spot in the flooring near the tub matters more than either, and so does paint lifting off the ceiling above the shower. A musty smell that won’t clear out, even during a dry Anaheim summer, points to the same thing: water has already moved past the surface you’re cleaning.
Central and West Anaheim are full of the single-story tract homes built during the Disneyland boom of the 1950s and 60s, and most are still running on the original galvanized or cast-iron supply lines. A joint failing inside a wall in one of these houses can leak for months before it ever reaches the drywall. The single-pane windows and thin wall insulation common to that era trap bathroom humidity instead of venting it, which gives mold a head start most homeowners never see coming. In Anaheim Hills, where two-story houses are the norm, an upstairs bathroom leak usually shows up first as a stain on the ceiling below, and by then it has been running a while.