YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Thursday February 9, 2012
Welcome to our new blog, Homegirls. You'll find a sassy sampling of décor and design tips, frank conversation about everything from holidays and homekeeping to home improvement and our picks and pans of new products, stores and events.
Contributors: Lynn Underwood, Suzanne Ziegler, Kim Ode, Connie Nelson and Kim Palmer.
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To read Greengirls posts, go here.
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Home, after nearly a month of traveling, I really need to wash clothes. But I can’t. The washtub is full and overflowing, sudsy water is running all over the floor.
What’s the matter, I wonder as I mop up water from the floor.
(“Well, what do expect, dearie, washing clothes on a Sunday,” comes the voice of my dear departed mother.)
The basement drain and sewer line had been cleaned a month earlier. So what could be backing up?
I lift the floor drain cover and look as far as I can see. No problem.
I submerge a plunger in the stalled water in the sink and work the drain. No movement.
I push and pull a plumbing snake into the drain and through the pipe to no avail.
It’s Sunday and I really don’t want to call a plumber.
I vigorously repeat the snaking. Now, I feel a bump. The snake runs into something. I twirl lit around and pull. A small feather floats to the water’s surface.
Oh-oh. Did I wash a pillow or something?
No.
After a few minutes of thinking about feathers, I think of birds. Could a bird be preventing the drain from draining?
Impossible.
Well, no. On second thought, if a bird fell down the plumbing vent on the roof….
I call a 24-hour plumbing service.
The plumber is skeptical of my explanation. He lifts the floor drain cover, checks this and that , then takes out his heavy duty plumbing snake and sets to work. Out comes more feathers, bigger feathers, then whoosh. The water drains and the line is free, and the bird, I’m afraid is history. (Actually ,it probably was done up a while ago.)
“ That’s $200 ma’am.”
Although it’s very unusual for a bird to fall down a plumbing vent, the $200 lesson taught me to cover the vent with screen.
Has anything like this happened to you? Has an animal entered your abode in an unusual way, causing trouble and costing bucks?
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