Cleaning No. 1: The Bathtub Drain

Despite Mr. C's luscious locks of hair, Nora and I are usually the front runners in our household "who can shed the most" competition. Sometimes, like in the case of the vacuum cleaner, we even work together for maximum clogginess, but unfortunately the bathtub drain is all my doing. (Nibbles has not taken a bath since the "Super Fleas of 2011" incident.) Sister V. trained me at a young age to always clean the drain post-shower - former roomies, you can all thank her - but our new shower has this nice cover that hides all unpleasantness. So I forget about it until 'the problem' starts.

A few weeks ago, I solved the problem by pulling the drain cover off and removing something akin to Swamp Thing. (No joke. Even I was revolted and it was my hair.) But this week the problem is back and there's no visible fix. Which means Swamp Thing had a twin and it's gone to ground. Joy. (Nora loves when this happens because it means she can play "Watering Hole" after every shower. I keep thinking she will get more normal with age, but I swear that cat is just becoming more neurotic.)

In the past, this is when I go out and buy Drano, but I thought I'd try something different this time. Inspired by Pinterest and my lack of cleaning supply storage space, I've slowly been switching over to less and healthier cleaning products. (Right now this equates to buying Method multi-purpose cleaner which smells divine and buying fragrance-free detergent, but you know, I'm working on it...) Mommy bloggers seem to swear by baking soda and vinegar for clogs - although calling it "white gold" seems a bit much ;) - so I thought I'd give it a shot. White Gold vs. Swamp Thing. At the very least, I figured I'd have an interesting science project.

Recipes vary, but I settled on 1/2 cup of baking soda, followed by 1 cup of vinegar. It was a little hard to cram the baking soda down the drain, but once the vinegar hit it, it dissolved pretty quickly. I let it sit for 15 minutes, than flushed it down with a kettle of boiling water. Result? A little better (maybe?) but the drain still seemed a bit slow. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. On to Round 2.

With the same lukewarm results.

I stopped there, before I ended up dumping the entire bottle of vinegar down the drain, and decided to see how it handles during tomorrow's round of showers. Mr. C's pretty honest about these things. He'll let me know if it's better or not. I'll keep you posted.

Have you ever tried using baking soda and vinegar on clogs before? Did it work for you?