One of the little known benefits from living in a household with three long-haired girls is the fact that I'm one the one who is visibly losing hair... yet the girls manage to lose more than enough hair all over the carpet and into the bathtub sinks without any discernible difference in the volume and quantity of the hair on their heads. It also means that from time to time... our bathtub/shower sink starts to fail to drain... which means that hair is caught in there... catching all the gunk that goes down the drain and forming it all into a lovely stinky ball of bacterial heaven.
So, because I'm the one that DIDN'T contribute to the problem... it falls to me to clear out the blockage. In the past, I had been just grabbing the bits that I could with my hands and tweezers (it's pretty disgusting...) or flushing some drain cleaner into the sinkhole. However, this time... it wasn't seeming to do the trick. Which led me to looking at other mechanical (non0-chemical) methods to try and solve the problem!
Be forewarned... this post does get a bit gross... just be thankful that you can't smell it! However, if you are squeamish... just drop a 100% upvote, reblog and run screaming!
So, my online "research" led me to people making long hook-like objects out of wire coat hangers... however, all of our coat-hangers were not of the wire-type... and so, that was out of the question. Somehow, bending and probably snapping a nice wooden hanger would definitely not work and likely get me in trouble with my wife.
Still, I wasn't going to go straight out to the shops to buy or borrow a single wire coat-hanger... although, there is a demonstration of hysteresis in metal that I wanted to show my daughters... to make a fire out from a coat hanger! Digression.... so, I decided to poke around in our garage which is full of junk (sorry, interesting treasures of future potential use...) from the previous owners... to which I have dutifully added to.
In a cupboard that hasn't been opened since we first moved in... I found some lengths of thick insulated copper wiring! Perfect! Nice and stiff, so just right for this purpose... although, I wonder what sort of price copper fetches on the black market these days...
First thing to do would be to strip the insulation from one of the ends of the wire. This is probably best done with a proper stripping tool, but the first thing that I could find was a Stanley knife... if you are careful, it will do. Always cut with the blade away from you!
Next up, I did a large right angled hook on the side that would stay OUT of the drainhole. This is a sort of handle to make turning the apparatus easier... it will become apparent later on!
With a needle nose plier (this wire was pretty damn stiff...), I fashioned a hook from the bare metal.
The hook needed to be wide enough to catch a good chunk of clogged hair whilst being thin enough to get into the drain hole. Think of it like fishing... just less tasty...
So, push the stiff wire with the hook down into one of the holes... and let it down as far as it can go. At this point, you are seeing with your feeling in your fingers... and you should be able to start to feel the outline of the pipe and the hair blockage. Push beyond the blockage, and then bring the hook back up a little (still deep inside the pipe...). At this point, use the right angled "handle" to turn the contraption... this is to tangle the hair around the hook, making sure that you don't lose it when you pull it up...
... and pull slowly up... you don't want to snap the hair gunkball and lose it all! Probably if you are squeamish at this point, this is a great time to just give me a 100% upvote and reblog and move on~!
Last warning...
.... mmmmmm... lekker, as the Dutch would say!
Bleah... just looking at it again makes me want to retch again! You have no idea how gross it was and how much it stank! Be thankful again that is only a photo and not the real thing! However, if you are inspired and really want to experience for yourself how bad this smells... I'm sure that this trick will work just as well in your own bathtub/shower sink! You will be amazed at how well the water drains after taking this horrible thing out!
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