The Bath Tub

One of the first things I noticed when I started staying with the McQueens in the summer was that when I took a shower in the morning water would enter the tub faster than it would leave. Something, mostly hair, was clogging the drain. I tried pulling some out sometimes (eeewwwwww!) but it never significantly helped.

When Craig moved in, I would get up first, at 5:15 and take a shower. The tub would slowly drain as I dried off, combed my hair, shaved, etc. Then I would go down stairs and Craig would get up and go to take a shower. The tub would slowly drain before the next person took a shower.

But then, something happened right before Thanksgiving. The drain got completely clogged. On the Thursday before Thanksgiving the tub wasn't draining at all. Craig decided to delay the shower until that night.

Now, Craig was going to catch an early flight back to the Soo the next morning, so he was going to stay at a friend's over night. Thusrday night was worship team practice at our church. Both Craig and I were on the team. Our friend, Hans, is our sound guy for the team. Hans would have Craig and I over for dinner Thursday nights, then we would all go to the church together for worship team practice. This particular Thursday night Craig was to go back to Hans' place after practice and sleep there. He decided to delay his shower until he arrived at Hans'.

When we arrived at Hans' we told him of our troubles with the drainage. He lent me a drain-snake and some Liquid Plummer.

That night I got home from worship team at about 10:30. Now, I was to get up at 5:30 the next morning so I didn't want to stay up too late. When I arrived home, Wendy was upstairs in the washroom with a plunger and a juice container cut out to be a bail-bucket. She was manually draining the tub and using the plunger to clear the drain. Lots of stuff was coming up, but water wasn't going down.

I got out the snake and stuck it all the way down, turned the handle, pulled it out a little, pushed it back in, turned it, but to no avail. The tub would not drain! I tried the plunger for a while. Nothing. I fought with it for a while. Then I decided it was time for Liquid Plummer. I read the directions. It said not to use in standing water. This meant I had to get all the water out of the tub before I could use it. I bailed out what I could with the bucket. But then I needed to get a bit more water out. I soaked it up using toilet paper. The directions for the Liquid Plummer also said to pour the contents down the drain and wait for an hour, then turn on the tap. But by this time it was almost midnight. I was not about to wait until 1:00am for this. I had to get up early the next morning.

So I decided to fight with it the next evening. (There goes my Friday night!) I went to bed.

I got up the following morning. I turned on the water and the drain was practically sucking the water down. Probem solved!! And I didn't even have to use the Liquid Plummer. I gave it back to Hans the following Sunday morning.

Whew! What a draining experience!