Danny Boy

So the other day, Trevor is complaining that the kitchen sink won't drain properly. We have a rollaround dishwasher, and you hook it into the kitchen sink, and that's where it drains too. We didn't want to run the dishwasher until the sink would draing again.

Lee unscrewed & opened everything up under the sink, and was set up with a bucket & towels & stuff. Trevor was on the roof with the garden hose stuck in the drain vent. Diana was at the spigot, and I was outside the kitchen window to be able to relay Lee's instructions to the kids.

Lee says to crank up the water, Diana does, and Trevor hangs on to the hose in the vent. Nothing happens at the kitchen sink. But Lee hears water somewhere else (not what you want to hear). He tells me to tell Diana to shut off the water, and then I run inside to see where there's water coming up.

No sign of anything in the bathroom by the kids' rooms, nothing in the new bathroom - but in the laundry room there's a wash sink - and it's got a bunch of blackish stinky goop in it - yuck!

Now everyone heads down under the house in the daylight basement (unfinished) where the drain out plug is located. We're getting buckets & towels & stuff down there, There was wire wrapped around the y-joint (?!?), and as Lee was getting that off, he sets his wrench on the plug itself. The whole y-joint cracked & blew open. All that black stinky goop from the sink above poured over Lee and down the plastic tarp on the floor - EW!

Apparently, there had been an issue in the past with this y-joint, and they 'fixed' it by using some kind of metal soldering glue. It was not meant to be a permanent fix, obviously.

We got towels down there & buckets & whatever and Lee went down to Lowe's and grabbed the supplies he needed to fix it for the rest of the house. We won't be using the laundry room sink as a sink until he can get the rest of it fixed.

All the mess got cleaned up, and enough Oxyclean and detergent in an overnight soak got the black goop out of the towels & clothes.

The black goop is mostly decomposed hair... The lines down there are all crusted with it - probably from before we moved in, and then whatever we added. Lee wants to replace those with PVC - in the meantime, Liquid Plummer or Drano should keep it clear.

Here's the reason for the title of this post: First Line of the song