# Plumbing: stuff comes up shower drain! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362 "2013-05-02T22:07:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/1 "2013-05-02T22:07:34Z")
Ick! Two bedroom apartment, with a big hallway bathroom and a smaller bathroom attached to the master bedroom. Smaller bathroom has shower, not tub. Two story apartment, I’m on the upper floor. One neighboring apartment to one side, and an apartment downstairs. In the mornings (last three days) the smaller bathroom will have little dried crusts of toilet paper on the floor of the shower. Sometime during the night, the shower is backing up, from some place connecting with a toilet! I’ve flushed the toilet in the large bathroom, repeatedly, and nothing backs up. I do live on a hill, and there are houses on a higher level. But no one else is reporting this happening to them. What’s the likeliest cause? Did I mention, ew and ick? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/2 "2013-05-02T22:22:11Z")
sounds like some bad shit. if the drain to the smaller bathroom toilet is not flushing well it could send waste to the shower drain. tampons and stuff could clog the drain just after the toilet. if the sewer was plugged away from your building on the downside this could happen, though the lower floor would have it worse and before you. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/3 "2013-05-02T22:34:31Z")
I would guess your main drainage line is clogged, although I’d expect the downstairs apartment to be backing up before yours. You must be on separate sewage lines. This happened to us when we first bought our house – roots from a tree in our front yard had grown into and were blocking our sewage line, causing the shower drain to back up whenever water ran for too long. (We actually flooded part of our house when the toilet flapper got stuck open and ran for four hours. Good times.) Luckily, this is a pretty simple and inexpensive problem to fix – you just need to get someone to open up your clean-out valve and auger out the pipe. Call your landlord, hopefully he’ll get someone out there asap. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/4 "2013-05-02T23:24:12Z")
Sorry Giraffe but if after talking to the bottom neighbor and them having no problem, it would have to be a blockage between the upstairs and the downstairs apartment. However, don’t assume the neighbor is not having problems. I would expect the neighbor to be swimming in your sewage if the main line outside the house was the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/5 "2013-05-03T05:09:09Z")
**Harmonious Discord** : (Love your name, btw.) I don’t know the branching diagram, but my _guess_ is that it’s coming from the toilet in the same small bathroom as the shower. If it were coming from the _shower_ in the other bathroom, it would just be water, not toilet paper. Obviously, I’ve got to switch to colored t.p., as part of a truly scientific experimental protocol… (Some years ago, there was a sewage back-up – another part of town – and toilet paper started oozing up through people’s front lawns. Their lawns looked like snow had fallen on them! Eeee-yuck!) ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/6 "2013-05-03T17:36:22Z")
Your line needs a snaking, that’s obvious. The blockage could even be a large snake the downstairs neighbor lost. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/7 "2013-05-03T19:05:41Z")
You may be able to fit a shower drain check valve which would keep water from up the drain. A plumbing supply place could help. Also if you have an old-fashioned rubber stopper plug for the drain, keeping it installed until needed, may prevent backflow. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/8 "2013-05-03T20:11:03Z")
the toilet drains are often closest to the vertical drain stack because it has the most shit to go down the drain. the sink and tub/shower can be placed farther away with smaller pipes because it is just water. a restriction in the drain system after the toilet can cause some of the toilet waste to go towards the tub. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/9 "2013-05-03T20:21:17Z")
I feel for the OP. For a few months when I was in college, I lived in a basement apartment. One day, the raw sewage from the entire house filled my bath tub, then overflowed onto the floor. Not a pretty sight . . . or smell. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plumbing-stuff-comes-up-shower-drain/657362/10 "2013-05-04T01:48:53Z")
> [@JerrySTL](#): > > You may be able to fit a shower drain check valve which would keep water from up the drain. A plumbing supply place could help. > > Also if you have an old-fashioned rubber stopper plug for the drain, keeping it installed until needed, may prevent backflow. If this continues, I’ll look into that. I don’t suppose the pressure is enough to blow the cork out of the bottleneck… > [@panache45](#): > > I feel for the OP. For a few months when I was in college, I lived in a basement apartment. One day, the raw sewage from the entire house filled my bath tub, then overflowed onto the floor. Not a pretty sight . . . or smell. Did I mention “ew?” I’m gonna have nightmares now!