When you find multiple horrid arthropods cavorting about the drain of a sink that’s done very little besides collect goo since it was installed several years ago, it’s best to assume that what you can see is not the whole problem. Every time I confirmed a kill I saw evidence of something worse lurking in ambush. I’m quite sure I didn’t get the big one.
But I can testify that there are no centipedes left in the immediate sink plumbing, because…
…there is no immediate sink plumbing. It’s scattered all over the Cave floor and yard.
I’ve never been very happy with that particular piece of plumbing. It was put together from disparate bits, was never entirely leak-free, and I finally decided this episode was nature’s way of telling me I should tear it all out and rebuild it right. So I visited the hardware store this morning and brought home everything (I thought. HAH!) I needed to get that drain out of my life. I just took it apart piece by piece, dealing with centipedes as I encountered them. Two confirmed kills: Death to Bugs.
I got it all apart, tried to put it back together with new parts – and that’s when both sink drains…
…just…kind of fell apart, I dunno. They both came loose from their respective sinks and refused to re-tighten, and when I took them off to investigate the problem, the tightening threads were just sort of gone. I suspect bug sabotage.
So – it’s back to the hardware store, and no kitchen sink in Ian’s Cave till I do. Not that that particular sink really gets used all that much, but it’s the principle of the damned thing. I tried to fix something simple, and everything I touched broke till I hit cast iron.
That is why I hate plumbing repair. Takes about three trips to the store to get it done. Don’t say plumbers don’t have problem . They normally have half the store in their trucks.
What WW said. THIS is why plumbing house calls are expensive- it should take one trip because almost everything is on the truck. Also, the shop s/he works out of needs heating and lighting and repairs and taxes and and and stuff.
I’ve had enough experience that I would have replaced everything except the sink. Those metal bits are always crappier than they should be (don’t know anybody who makes stainless steel sink drain fixtures) and corrode away even if you coated them with grease.
Of course, trips to the plumbing store are further for you than for most people 😉
When you get everything put back together.
try to remember to run water into the trap(s) about monthly, In the desert, it might need more often to hopefully keep surprises in the septic system instead of the drain.
Somehow, my wife became the family plumber. After 20 years in this house, she’s replaced toilets, run new pipe in the walls, shutoff valves, everything. Somehow, I found that one weird trick…
Anyway, I’d be wondering what the centipedes were eating. Each other, sure, but nothing else? I supposed the vent is not far off the ground, so of course it’s full of bugs and etc. Down here, ours are filled with palmetto bugs, but of course the trap keeps them out of the sinks. Surely you have a trap in that sink. It’s funny that even one hundred legs could negotiate past that.
And the obvious point to make here is that you must be awash in spiders and scorpians and random unexpected wasp nests, so I think we should take centiphobia with possibly an eyeroll?
Anyway, good luck. Bleach is your friend.
Go easy with the bleach…too much can kill the septic tank.
Hose clamp some screen to the vent pipe, blocks the bugs and trash.
A spoonful of mineral (baby) oil in the drain will help keep the trap from drying out.
Plumbing, gawd I hate messing with plumbing, it always means at a minimum, at least two trips to the hardware store. I feel yer pain Joel.