Maintaining your drains – essential DIY

Sitting a gnat’s girth from the equator, in the middle of the warm south china seas, drains are going to be a festering problem. It is hot and humid here. Hot and humid all the time. Our storm drains and home drains are full of tepid water that doesn’t run away and we humans tend to wash down the plughole an awful lot of protein, hair and waste food. Some of the storm drains that run around these older neighbourhoods have only ever been flushed through after dramatic floods. I hear that people have actually fallen in them, they have been so flooded, and gashed their legs badly in a fetid bath. Delightful.

At home, we’re not talking about our u-bends or sink plug-holes. We’re talking about industrial, vertical drains built from industrial piping that run several stories down. For some odd reason these are always filled with water, about 35cm below the level of our floor. Around these drains we have inherited a breeding ground of slime and a furry mattress of hair and fluff from the previous tenant. Once already we’ve had a greasy ball of matted hair and human fats disgorged from a deep, dark part of the shower’s drain that was blocking the progress of water. Today I tackled the remainder of the drains that hard started to smell somewhat ripe with the recent heat.


Everything was going well; rubber gloves, long handled brush, boiling water and powerful chemicals were all dispatched into the dark with moderate success. On flushing the sink and opening the kitchen’s drain cover (and this is right in our kitchen remember) I came face to face with a stinking fat cockroach, twitching its antennae as it watched the cleaning waters race past. Now that’s not pleasant at all. Cockroaches spread a lot of nastiness and have a habit of leaving their eggs lying around in a careless fashion. Quickly the Baygon was to hand and the poor guy didn’t stand a chance. It struggled a few inches before collapsing at which point it was wrapped in a paper body bag and dumped into the external rubbish-chute.


The general message to all out here, keep your drains clean and flushed regularly. Watch what is washed away down the sink in the way of food stuffs and make bleach your friend!


Shovel