Do-it-yourself drain care not for the faint of heart

I noticed recently that water was draining more and more slowly from our bathtub. I first thought this was a call for a highly corrosive, hydrochloric acid-based drain blaster, the ones that we all know to keep away from our eyes and all living things. But, since purchasing such an environmentally unfriendly product kept slipping my mind, I decided to unscrew the affixed tub plug and have a look down the drain. I am not sure what I expected to find.

In the dark hollows of the drain pipe, I could see foamy blockage. Since I was unable to get a really good look beyond the opening, I decided to straighten a clothes hanger, fashion it into a hook and plunge, then pull; a fishing expedition or sorts. What I succeeded in catching haunts my dreams.

The homemade hook caught solidly right away on something in the recesses of the drain pipe, so solidly that it took all my strength to jerk the wire loose. When it finally came loose, attached to its end appeared to be a soggy dead rodent.

What I caught wasn’t a dead rodent. What I caught in my bathtub drain had to be a decade’s accumulation of scum, lint, sand, particles of stuff unknown and hair. Lots and lots of slimy hair.

We have only owned this house seven years, so I am extra repulsed knowing I wrestled hair clogs left by people who owned the house before us. Strangers. Strangers who moved back to Australia, I was told by neighbors, though it would not matter where they went. I regret having to handle their hair balls.

After plunging a few more times with the homemade hook, and retrieving several smaller relatives of the initial soggy rodent, I recovered emotionally as much as possible and moved on to Phase Two of my drain clearing mission. I chose a method I learned from my father. I boiled a ten gallon pot full of water and poured it all in. I then replaced the plug and tested drain efficiency by turning on the spigot. The water raced away.

My deceased father, Bill Curle, was an innovative man. He designed contraptions and work-saving systems for fun. When I was a child, he routinely cleared our home drains by pouring the biggest pots of boiling water into them. This was a surefire method, he always boasted, of dissolving all that he said clogged drains most, such as soapy residue and oils from our skin. While his boiling water method seemed to keep our drains perky during my childhood, I do not recall my squeamish father getting to the real root of the drain problem as I did. I think he would be proud.

A generational tendency to take care of sluggish drains lives on, I suppose. I like to think of myself as innovative in the way my father was. I also like to think that a bent coat hanger and boiling water do not tax our environment the way corrosive drain cleaners do. Further, I believe that, just once in a while, we all need to be really grossed out. To that end, I share my story, complete with photos.