So it's been a while since I had a kitchen with garbage disposal. My last place was old and didn't have such advanced device in our kitchen. It's not like I've never had one before, but it's been a while.
When I moved in, the manager was very strict about what I put down the drain, what I flush in the toilet, etc. She was particularly adamant about me not putting rice down the drain. I thought it was weird that she would talk about that specifically and it made me somewhat self conscious thinking she's only saying this because I'm Asian (the manager is white). I also thought it was stupid because she told me not to put any rice down because it'll swell up and clog the drain. Apparently I'm not supposed to do that but I'll explain why in a minute.
It's not that I deliberately ignored the instructions, but I guess I neglected monitoring what was going down the drain. One day I apparently put a little too much rice (or whatever it was) down the garbage disposer and not all of it went through. I turned it on one day and it made a horrible noise, like something hard was down there. Before I could stop it, the garbage disposer died. It seems like I don't react fast enough when household appliances act up (similar thing happened with the microwave.)
I reached down the drain every so often to make sure no spoons, forks, etc. were down there. I had no clue what could be there to make that noise. and now it's dead!!!
I thought about my options for a while. I could...
1. Let it be
2. Tell the manager/owner and have it fixed
3. Call my plumber friend
I let it be for a while but it was really inconvenient. Then it felt as if the water started going down more slowly. Something had to be there. Perhaps it was too much rice. I was too embarrassed and afraid to tell the manager/owner. After all, she did warn me.
I was having dinner with my friend, Mike the plumber (for real) and told him what happened. He laughed and explained that rice is bad for garbage disposer because it'll harden and clog the drain/disposer. I asked him if he could sneak in and fix it. I didn't want my manager to see that I asked a plumber to fix something in my apartment...she lives two doors down. He said ok.
He came down today with his tools discretely tucked in his back pocket. According to him, it was just a matter of resetting the disposer and making sure there's nothing inside that's blocking the drain. He first switched on the disposer. Absolutely no sound came out. Then he pressed the reset button and unscrewed something at the bottom and turned it on again and it made really bad sound (different from last time), like there was something hard down there.
He reached down and pulled out a tiny spoon!! Not sure how it got down there because I was (or I thought I was) very good about checking it. I checked even after it stopped working. Weird. I saw this happen so many times at home and now I did it, too. Ugh.
Anyhoo, it runs smoothly and it's back to the way it was, except it freaking stinks!!!!! He told me what to do to make it smell better, etc.
Good thing it wasn't completely broken or completely clogged. He had no idea how to get the snake up here without the manager seeing it.
2 comments:
HA! See what happens when you don't listen!?!?
This is going to be a story for my next book (about not listening)!
BTW, a disposal usually can be fixed by 1) pressing the reset button on the bottom of the unit, and 2) turning the blades a little bit (you can do this with an allen wrench on the bottom, or with a broomstick directly in the blade area).
Yeah...I thought I could be better than other Asians who clogged the sink with rice in this building in the past. All I had to do was look this up on the internet and I could have figured out that there is a reset button. I don't have that wrench thingy but those two things you mentioned are exactly what he did. Soooo embarrassing!
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