A Single Gal's Guide to Unclogging a Drain

I am going to be honest with you, home improvement is not my thing. However, saving money and doing it myself is certainly my thing. My drains are often clogged at any given time. I have very thick hair. My very thick hair often falls out while I am styling it in the bathroom each morning. Later, it works its way down the drain since the hair goes in the sink, I ignore it, and then I run the water. Yes, I guess you could say I am an expert at clogging drains, but not so much unclogging them.

Recently, my bathroom drain was a little bit beyond its usual state of "clogginess." Is clogginess a word? Probably not. Nonetheless, if I were to describe the normal condition of my sink, I would say it suffers from clogginess quite often. This time, I noticed the sink was giving me problems way beyond the usual slow clogginess issue. The water did not want to go down the drain at all. This was extremely frustrating. As a single gal, if there is a problem at my apartment, I have to determine how to resolve it on my own.

I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. Forget calling in the maintenance guys to fix my sink. Forget calling a plumber either. Who has that kind of money or patience? No, this was a job for me, my bottle of Drano, and my trusty plunger. I was going to unclog the sink myself.

Once I decided I was going to unclog the sink myself, I decided to grab my plunger and see what kind of progress I could make with that. There was a lot of standing water in the sink, so I used the plunger to try to make it go down. I would say I kept plunging it for about a few minutes.

The next thing that happened was the sink basically threw up. There is no other way to put it. Lots of disgusting gunk backed up and came out in the sink. It was really gross, so if you have a weak stomach, you might want to turn away.

Once that process was complete, I waited for the water and gunk to go down the drain. The plunger did help clear stuff out, but obviously the Drano was still necessary. I also took a paper towel and cleaned up the sink some. That way, the gunk that did not go down could at least get wiped up.

After all that, I poured half of the Drano in the sink. I waited the 15 minutes it says to wait on the bottle, and then I rinsed with hot water. Since my sink seemed pretty severe, I then poured the rest of it down the drain. After another 15 minutes, I rinsed again.

Now my sink is back to being tidy and clean just as any single gal's sink should be. Just because you live by yourself does not mean you can't take matters into your own hands. It is not that difficult to unclog a drain all on your own. I am woman, hear me roar... or unclog!