As on site apartment managers we often have our plans derailed by various emergencies and problems that spring up. One such occasion happened just a few weeks ago on a beautiful Saturday morning. My wife was leaving to go attend a fun craft outing and was walking down the hall when she noticed a *squish squish* sound beneath her feet. (its a terrible sound to hear, especially when you have plans for the day) It was the sound of wet carpet. It looked like it was coming from a vacant apartment that we are currently renovating.
She quickly unlocked the door and discovered that the kitchen sink was full of disgusting water that was overflowing all over the floor and onto the carpet. She quickly called me with her cell phone and I came rushing down to see what was going on…
Pictures and more after the break.
Just a quick note… this type of water is called grey water.. that’s the term they use for water that is somewhere between clean and sewage. Its water that has been used by someone and has gone down a non sewage drain. This was greasy disgusting water full of fish guts and other poorly blended foods that were not fresh and were not pleasant smelling.
I quickly grabbed our wet vac and started sucking water from the sink to try to combat the water that kept rising from the drain. Within seconds, the vacuum was full and I had to empty it. As I rushed to get the vacuum emptied the water crept back up in the sink. Threatening to spill over again. I Raced to keep ahead of the terrible slurry, filling the vac and dumping. I finally made enough progress to get the sink empty of water and buy me some time to get the upstairs neighbor to stop using their sink (the source of this continual flow of grey water)
This is more disgusting than it looks... trust me. Click for a bigger view.
With the upstairs tenant no longer using their drain (happily doing dishes without knowing anything was going on below) I was able to start taking care of business.
It took four hours of draining, wiping, de-greasing, vacuuming and also snaking that drain to get this to a point where I could resume my “normal” daily activities. We still don’t know if the carpet is going to survive the event. It may need to be ripped out and replaced if it doesn’t clean out well.
What caused it in the first place? Well, you often cant pin point it to one specific thing or event but it basically boils down to people using garbage disposals in ways that they were never intended. Please people, if you are going to use a garbage disposal, throw the bulk of your food into the trash can and then use the disposal to take care of the little things left on your plate. Grinding up gallons of guts (The new name of my rock band by the way) is just a bad idea.
More gross pictures of the sink:
Oh… the smell… THE SMELL!!
Have you ever had a kitchen sink back up or had issues with grey water? Share your stories in the comment section below! Thanks for reading.
That’s some gross stuff man. Glad I didn’t have to clean that junk.