Ewww, Ewww, EEWWWWWW!!It was huge, I tell you, HUGE! I was cleaning the bathroom and while scrubbing the tub, I happened to glance into the drain. My husband and I both have long hair, and we’ve had to de-hair the drain before. The water’s been draining slower recently, I figured it was time for another batch of Drano or whatever.
So I glance down, and see a clump of hair in the drain. I reach in and pull. Some of it comes out, some of it’s wrapped around the crossbars of the drain. It’s pretty nasty, all dripping and squishy. I work my fingers in there, using my nails, and pull out another smallish clump, then another. Shaking my head, saying, “Jiminy crickets is this gross!” Then my fingers grasp a larger portion. I can feel it loosening- it’s coming- there’s greyish water dripping off my hand- and this THICK, LONG wodge of hair comes out of the drain. I’m not grossed out by much, but I gotta tell ya…it made me think of a Stephen King story. Or one of the early X-Files episodes where they were investigating creatures like Tooms or the Flukeworm guy (before they got bogged down in that whole conspiracy crapola). I felt like I should set fire to it or something instead of just throwing it into the trashcan. I washed my hands REAL good with antibacterial soap afterwards.
We’ve got to get one of those little plastic hair-catcher thingys for the drain. That way I won’t start imagining sludgy hair-monsters creeping out of the tub at night…
Gak! I am so with you on this. Hair in the drain is one of the grossest things ever. I sometimes ponder how hair on my head doesn’t gross me out at all, but as soon as it’s in the drain, it literally turns my stomach and gives me the dry heaves.
I am so with you on this. I am blessed with long, thick hair and I must clean the drain out everytime I shampoo my hair. What I have started to do is brush my hair before I step into the shower. I catch a lot of stray hairs this way and my hair doesn’t tangle like it used to. I often wonder how many wigs I could have if I had saved the shedded hair in a plastic bag. I better stop; I’m starting to gross myself out.
Yuuuuuuck! But I, too, feel your grossed-outedness. (New word, folks!)
About seven years ago, my hair started falling out. In huge quantities. It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up with a hair pillow. Solid brown with hair. (or red, or whatever color I happened to be at that time)
Our drain started slowing, too. I knew I was the reason why. My husband (not me for God’s sake!) began to reach into the drain and I heard an almost womanly screech emit from his lips.
“MY GOD STACEY! It’s a miracle you’re not completely BALD!”
He had a fist-FULL of my hair. Literally thousands of strands. Then he pulled out another one…only maybe a quarter smaller than the first one. And this had only been the first time he’d cleaned the drain in about two weeks.
I about threw up. My kids made the mistake of edging past me to get into the bathroom to see what Daddy was tripping out about. They about knocked me over to get out, gagging and making all sorts of retching noises. My daughter started crying, thinking Mommy was going to end up looking like Mr. Clean.
Luckily, the hair falling out stopped (it being due to a side effect of my thyroid medicine) and the drain went back to normal. But for about a six month period, my husband had to pull out a whole wigful of hair from the drain every week!
Now the only thing that stops it up is cat hair and my six year old throwing toilet paper in it. No! Not USED!
My favorite thing to do with that stuff is lightly sautee it with garlic and olive oil, and serve it on sourdough with tomotoes, like bruschetta, but hairier.
SilkyThreat, my hair loss is also due to a thyroid imbalance. It seems to have gotten worse in the past few months, and my TSH was just over the line into the hyper range (I’m hypothyroid). But, I switched to a different med a couple months ago, and my TSH is getting to within normal range, so I’m hoping that my hair loss will taper off in the next couple of months.
I have short hair, and so does my beagle. But, between the two of us, we fill up a vacuum cleaner bag every other month. Nothing but hair. Hair everywhere. Gads, it’s disgusting.
It probably will, Moggy! I was terrified for months that I would have to either buy a wig or shave what was left and paint colorful symbols on my head. It grew back. Just as thick as ever, but a good deal finer than it was before. Of course, that could be the onset of aging…[sub]nah, couldn’t be that…[/sub]
According to my doctor, though, mine was due to the side effects of the medicine, which he didn’t take me off of or change in any way. My hair loss started on its own (after I’d been on the medicine for four years) and stopped on its own (after about seven to ten months, roughly).
I’m sure yours will stop all this falling out and grossing you out in the tub nonsense and come back, too. If not, I know a great tattoo parlor…
moggy, have you never used a snake? The wire thingy that you stick down the drain and twist around to pick up all the hair. The last time I did that, I swear the hairball that came back up was the size of your average rat.
got one that’s even worse. i, too, have long thick hair. and our house is between 100-140 years old. know what likes to live in old houses? SPIDERS! so one day, i’m in the shower, notice that the water isn’t draining, reach into the drain and pull out a huge hunk of mung-covered hair, and a huge SPIDER!! and it wasn’t dead, either!! it was really PISSED!!!. the damn thing was about the size of a quarter!! i screamed, started waving my hand around like an idiot, slipped and fell on my ass, and, worst of all, LOST THE SPIDER!!! so now, i’m naked, wet, sore, in the shower, with a homicidal arachnid gunning for me, and i don’t know where the damn thing is!! i finall got out of the shower, and found the spider climbing up the shower curtain. sprayed it with hairspray, cologne and finally dow scrubbing bubbles bathroom cleanser, and it wouldn’t die. i picked it up in some toilet paper, and flushed it down the toilet. then flushed again. then again. the only thing i’m allergic to in the world is venom. bees, wasps, hornets, spiders, anything with the smallest amount of venom. i get bit or stung, and i’m down for 2 or 3 days, on antibiotics, putting all sorts of salves on the bite. i’m not normally an animal killer, and will usually try to do a “catch and release” with any wild things that end up in my house. but DO NOT mess with me when i’m wet and naked for i will be wroth!!
“There’s no point in doing another blood test - your hair loss couldn’t be due to your thyroid. I’ll send you to a dermatologist to figure out the cause.” - my idiot (former) internist
“No, it wouldn’t be your thyroid. It’s probably female pattern baldness and there’s nothing we can do about it.” - the idiot dermatologist
There’s nothing quite like looking in the mirror and wondering if it’s more graceful for a WOMAN to shave it off or attempt a combover, is there?
When I worked at an animal hospital, we did bathing and grooming on a limited basis. There was a tub in the treatment area, and we had a little plastic thingy that went in the drain that was like a mini-colander- that’s the only was I can think to describe it. It would get filled up with hair but it was a lot easier to clean out, and it prevented hair from going down the drain. I saw one for sale in a grocery store recently, I’m DEFINITELY going to buy one.
Ethilrist…tee hee! I just thought about it- my cats have been having a lot of problems yacking up hairballs recently (I even posted a rant in the Pit about it), and my nickname is moggy, and I had a hairball “come up” all slimy and yucky-granted, it was from a bathtub drain, but still. This strikes me as hilarious! Or maybe it’s because it’s late, and I’m tired, combined with this new anti-anxiety medicine I’m on that makes me kinda fuzzy…I still think it’s funny!
