We’ve lived in our house for three years. Because I have long hair, I had to learn to take the top parts off of my bathtub drain a long time ago. I hadn’t ever taken the top parts off of my bathroom sink, though. Until this morning.
That was better than any zit I’ve ever popped. Even ear zits.
I recently cleaned out the U-bend under the kitchen sink and found a platic straw, two (non-matching) chopsticks, and a full handful of greasy, rotting hair. The smell was just vile.
I once had a cyst on my back that turned out to be filled with green sludge and 5 fairly long hairs. That was much better than the sink thing.
I know! I have had very long hair and, even though I brushed my hair out before I got in the shower and put what I *did *catch on the wall (okay, ew…) until I got out, we regularly pulled long hairballs out of the drain… It was kind of fascinating.
My husband would not do the "zip"ing… Made him gag. He does dog poo, though, so it evens out…
On preview, I ***so ***would have loved your cyst, Virgil!
I just pour in drano and replace the whole thing every few years. That’s for my cysts. I clean the sink traps regularly.
Yeah, I’ve gotten in the habit of brushing before I shower, and then when I use conditioner, pulling all the loose hairs free and putting them on the wall until I get out. Even then, when I was at my parents’ house, I ended up having to use one of those Zip-It tools. After more than a year, there was a slimy, stinky hairball the size of my fist.
I put it in a ziploc baggie and left it out for my mom. She’s a nurse, so I knew she’d appreciate it.
Ah me. Not all of us are so blessed, Mr. Tibbs.
Sorry, can’t agree with you on this one. Popping a big pustulous zit or blackhead is intensely satisfying. Pulling a wet stringy slime covered hairball from a drain just induces a STRONG gag reflex.
Ha, don’t “ew.” I do this too. I brush my hair pretty good before washing, and try to stick any hair that comes out on the wall, and I’m still single-handedly keeping the Drano people in business.
My spouse’s shower, which is in a bathroom accessible to the cats and has a drain that the cats can pull up (and like to), started running slowly, so I decided to open it up and see what was going on in there.
What I pulled up was the most vile, horrific, green-black collection of disgusting ooze (including three pens, a straw, and a couple of other small plastic items) that I’d ever experienced. It seriously smelled like an Elder God crawled in there and died several years ago, and we helpfully kept his corpse good and moistened the whole time. It was this…wet, fetid, ancient kind of smell that I’d never encountered before or since. It clung to things and persisted even after I cleaned the whole shower and washed my hands (I wore rubber gloves, of course). And the clump itself–it was about the size of a softball and looked like some unspeakable hairy section of Swamp Thing, only more disgusting.
I found the whole process strangely and completely satisfying (well, okay, not the smell). I find myself wishing it would plug up again so I can do a repeat performance, because it felt so…productive to drag all that out of there and flush it, then run the shower and watch it drain the way it was supposed to.
My shower drain has a simple X-trap at the top: my long hair tends to grab onto that and form mats there. So, I have a pair of curved hemostats hanging by the shower that I use to reach in there and pull the hanging mats up before I take a shower. Seems to keep it from clogging further down.
Were you trying to clog up your toilet next?
StG
Ha, no. I actually flushed it in several small clumps, so I figured it was probably okay. Given that this was over a year ago and the toilet has shown no signs of distress, I think I was correct.
No, no, nononononono. I can’t even be in the house when drain hair extraction is taking place. I don’t think there is anything the squicks me out more than drain wookies. I don’t want to see it, hear it, touch it, or god forbid smell it. I want to hurl right now, just thinking about it.
I have nothing to add except that “The Drain Wookies” would be an awesome band name.
I have to use a respirator in order to not barf when cleaning out a drain.
<<shudders>>
I can walk in a house and smell dirty drains, I swear. People don’t appreciate it :rolleyes:
One Thanksgiving dinner was to be at my brother’s. I had to spend a half hour cleaning the kitchen drain before I would even consider cooking there. And bro’, the underside of the sink strainer thing was SLIMY!!
Agree, just as much fun as a satisfying zit pop.
Watch out, I have baking soda, hot vinegar, a scrub brush, a plunger and long long tweezers, and I will clean your drain!!
there are domed shaped screen things that you can put over a shower or tub drain, it is a not attached sit there by gravity thing. it keeps much hair out of the drain.
Partypooper.
johnpost, you mean those things my BF REFUSES to clean out so the tub fills with 4" of water? Yeah, I use them, mostly to keep scorpions out. Makes no sense, do those critters come up the drains? But since I religiously use them, we have less scorps in the sinks/tub.
Last house we bought, there was one of these left by the previous owners in the master bathroom shower. I kept on kicking it and stepping on the edge of it when I was in there, since it’s right where I want to stand - to the point where it was just easier to remove it.
Also, what InsomniaMama said… :0)