My hippie-dippy roommate is sitting in the bedroom brooding because I said I am going to go buy Draino for the clogged drain. She wants me to use natural products I can find around the house instead of pouring awful chemicals down the drain. And now she is taking the shared work car to go out instead of her car so that I can't go to the store to get the evil chemicals.

Tell her to suck it up and then get the draino out of spite.

(I'm probably not all that good at roommate advice).

You can try the "natural" method... Im not really sure what that entails. If she has a problem with chemicals ask her for a more specific solution, not just a vague suggestion. The clogged drain is her problem too, not just yours.

If the "natural" method fails you would be very justified in seeking an alternative.

I am all in favor of organic solutions until they fail. At some point you just have to fix the drain.

Whose house/apt is it?

Yours???- TELL her that draino will be used. Also...TELL her to clean up her act or you will evict here.

Have a landlord?? - TELL her that draino will be used. Also...look for another place to live.

Hers??? - Find another place to live now.

This is the best advice in the thread. Calling someone a hippie and ranting about them on a forum might be cathartic, but the only thing that will actually make a difference is taking control of your life and making healthy decisions.

Make her unclog it. She wants a natural method, she can come up with it. I use draino.

It's also kinda humorous that she is scared of draino, but doesnt mind polluting the environment with the use of the car just to frivolously "go out"

Try using a funnel over the drain and pour boiling water directly down the drain. This will work if the clog is grease.

Don't have a large funnel? Make one with aluminum foil, or cut both top and bottom out of a can.

If this works, you can tell her that you invoked the spirits or some crazy thing. Or you can tell her you sprayed oven cleaner down the drain. That would probably put her over the edge.

It is the bathtub drain that is clogged. Good idea, I think I will tell her I took her suggestion and found online if you pour olive oil and lighter fluid down the drain it unclogs it and we just happened to have these products laying around the house!

clogged bathtub in a house shared by girls? no matter how you fix the drain this time it will clog again, guaranteed.

get one of these before the next incident so you two won't have to debate "chemicals" (schlock nailed it, btw)

http://www.homedepot.com/p/BrassCraft-Zip-It-Bath-and-Sink-Hair-Snare-BC00400/100665735

be sure to get the $1.25 from roommie for her share...

This.^^^^

It's chick hair. You'll have to snake the drain every couple months... or use Draino. I'm partial to Liquid Plumr myself, but knock yourself out.

"If you don't like how I fix it, then you fix it your way. I promise not to complain about HOW you do it, IF you just DO it."

Tell her that Jerry Garcia used Draino.

You can try baking soda and vinegar. Dissolve about 1/2 cup of baking soda in a cup of water, pour it in the drain and then follow with a couple of cups of vinegar. It creates a fizzy volcano effect that cleans out the drain. It's worked for me before.

++++

Give the baking soda/vinegar treatment a boiling water chaser.

If you have a septic tank, it may need to be pumped out. Usually the first thing that happens is the tub won't drain. Next, the septic backs up into the tub. It's disgusting.

If you're not on a septic system, this is not the cause.

Why are you putting up with someone controlling your life in your home?
Do you have a friend who will go buy the draino so you can fix it while she is gone?
Or call the plumber. You may have a problem that draino or anything else won't solve.
If you rent, call the landlord. NOW.

Life is chemicals.

Drano is made up of 4 fairly basic inorganic molecules. That eat away at organic molecules (pubic hair, and other gross stuff).

None of these so-called "chemicals" last long once they're dumped down the drain, as they all react with the organic chemicals in the drain piping, and form other benign chemicals, all of which are ubiquitously found in nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drano

Reminds me of the people that rail against climate change, but refuse to consider nuclear power as an alternative to coal-fired power plants (which are the worst emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet). They refuse to allow science and facts intrude on their almost sacred beliefs.

Your roommate seems to have the same irrational notions about anything that is made from "chemicals".

I'm against coal-fired plants and I'm against nuclear power plants.

It's called SPENT FUEL! Yes, I have a little bit of a problem with that. Ok, call me one of those long-term consequences types. Guilty! I guess I'm just silly that way.

And for those on this thread who obviously own stock in SC Johnson, every time water is recycled and cleaned in a water treatment plant, the end result is dirtier water than the last time it was cleaned.

Seriously, Wikipedia? That page looks like it was written by the Drano PR Department. And, given it is the Wikipedia page, it very well could have been.

Good idea. Keep being opposed to nuclear power, and China, Germany, U.S., and lots of other countries will continue to generate electricity with coal.

Oh, and another brilliant idea: Oppose hydroelectric generation while you're at it.

Wind and solar will eventually be able to supply our electrical needs as a world, but that's 50 - 100 years out, realistically. If we want to bridge today with tomorrow, nuclear powerplants are by far the best option. And if we'd build nuclear reprocessing plants like in France, the amount of spent nuclear fuel would be substantially less than what is currently generated. And don't build plants on fault lines, near population centers, or close to the oceans.

Since you despise wikipedia so, here's France's story on nuclear power:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

Nuclear power is not benign, but it is, by far, our best short term solution to runaway CO2 emissions.

Let me guess, you don't believe in childhood vaccinations either?

Just get a wire hanger, open part of it up, and bend a narrow hook at the end of it (pliers will help). Then stick it down the drain, hook the hair, and pull the hair up.

It's kind of disgusting, so I usually pull the hair off the hook with toilet paper and flush it down the toilet.

Exactly, ima! I was thinking the same thing.

Sometimes the drain cover pops right off making it easier.

Maybe a wire a little bit smaller than a hanger is what I use. Thread it down carefully with a hooked end and pull up the blob of stuff.

I throw it in the trash.

Usually solves the problem in bathtubs for me- usually a couple times a year.

Worth a try.

pour a 1/2 cup of baking soda in the drain....followed by a cup of white vinegar....it will bubble up and froth...when it quits frothing...pour a full kettle of boiling water down that drain. Repeat monthly. That will keep the drain clean...but you might still need Drano...or a plumbers "snake" to get it cleaned out thre first time.

Ron Burr

You must have seen Kim and Aggie do that 'drain' trick on How Clean Is Your House?

I bought this funky "snake" at Harbor Freight for $1.99 what comes up is disgusting, but it worked.

Most landlords hate unnecessary calls (I count myself among them), but depending on how the lease is arranged (is the hippie your subtenant? is she yours? or do both of you have independent contracts with the landlord) it may be beneficial to give him or her a ring.

Request that he/she provide a written indicator (email is fine) of approved bathroom chemicals along with a 'recommended' solution. Ask that he put Draino as the recommended solution.

After that, if the hippie roommate has a complaint, she can take it up with the landlord. The landlord will eventually tire of it and tell her to just deal with the Draino. I can guarantee you the landlord would rather have icky Draino going down the drain than water backing up into a rental unit.

If it's the bathroom sink it's an easy fix. There are how to videos on YouTube. I'm an old lady and even I was able to follow the directions for unplugging a bathroom sink. It worked a lot better than Draino would have.

Is she against Chemicals on general principals?

Doesn't like DiHydrogen Monoxide maybe?

If her name is the only name on the lease, give her a short amount of time (24-48 hours) to get the drain clear. If it's a shared lease, or your name is on the lease, use the Drano. It's the sensible thing to do. I wouldn't play nice with a roommate that has shown zero consideration for you. She'll get over it.

You should also buy a $3.00 drain stainer thing that catches the hair before it can go down. My parents had one to deal with my waist length hair when I was in high school. Dad got sick of cleaning the drain.

Once I had to do it myself I went out and bought my own.

This topic reminds me about the time one of the toilets was flushing slow.

Tried the usual remedies, like a bucket of hot water, a snake that wouldn't make it around the goose neck.

Finally broke down and removed the toilet. The reduced flow was because of hair, looked like a big, ugly, disgusting hair ball.

Both DW and DD had long hair and they'd clean their hair brushes and throw the hair in the toilet.

The DW was taking the semi-lead on the fix, and when she saw and smelled the problem, she turned gray. I cleaned the clog and put the stuff in a garbage bag and made her throw it in the garbage. Warning, next time it happened she had to do the dirty work.

All I heard was her going down the stairs into the garage wasretching and gagging. I got to admit the stuff was nasty.

She now claims she'll never throw hair into the toilet again.
Problem solved.

Roommates: you can't live with them (some you can - in the right scenarios, conditions, personalities and understandings) you can't live without them (and still have these experiences, saving$ and all these stories to tell).

I actually agree with your roomate but your roomate doesn't sound like a real hippie. Sounds like they're keeping up with the image. I'm a hippie in a corporate hack's body. IF I was your roomate I would tell you not to use draino but then I would go and fix it myself so that you wouldn't use draino.

It's more complicated, you have to take apart the whole piping and pull everything out. Some people aren't that patient but it really is bad to pour that stuff down the drain. Where do you think it's going to go man? People just think they can flush whatever down the drain and there isn't going to be any impact. Like it just goes off into some alternate universe where they don't have to think about it ever again.

Does your roommate shave?

Honestly, use a plunger first. I've cleared more shower clogs with a simple plunger than messing with chemicals. Those chemicals are a bit dangerous and I've had them not rinse that easily away.

You can use a simple snake to clean the drain too. Both of those solutions often work better and faster than chemicals.