The Terrible Smell

Last Summer was incredibly warm.  It made me lazy, because I never wanted to go outside, but it also made my shower smell terrible.  Clearly, the smell was coming from the drain.  It smelled just plain rotten.  I tried liquid plumber, citrus drain freshener... nothing seemed to work.  Whatever was down there just smelled horrible!  I checked the internet for people having similar issues, which normally at least points me in the right direction.  There was no help to be had, so for a week or two, we suffered through a shower that smelled especially awful on hot days (which was every day last Summer).

The solution came to me completely by chance.  It wasn't complicated, in fact it was quite logical.  Perhaps if I had better knowledge of the inner workings of a house, the answer would have come to me sooner.  One morning the shower smelled awful as usual... but it also smelled a whole lot like raw onions.  The onion smell was from last night's dinner, which found its way, in part at least, into the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink.  Aha!  My shower is closer to the street than the kitchen, so my drain was simply downstream from the disposal, catching all of the rotting food!  As water went down the pipes, it pulled air from further up, which generated the awful smell as soon as the shower started running.

My kitchen was a recent addition to a house built in 1950.  My guess is that you will not encounter this in most homes because it is likely not standard procedure (although I'm not sure).  The contractor probably just tied the new kitchen into the existing drain to save some time.

In any case, remember to run your disposal often, mixed with the occasional $5 citrus drain freshener in the kitchen and you will solve your problem.  There, now the solution is on the internet and you won't have to wait to have onions for dinner.