Polluting the River Anduin…

Tonight we went to Wal-Mart in search of a quick fix to our basement drain problem. We asked the wizened old toothless man that was working at Wal-Mart for something to unstop a basement drain. He took me to the industrial chemicals aisle. The bottle we settled on was “Main Line Cleaner” and was in a relatively nondescript white bottle. It had DANGER SEVERE CHEMICALS or something like that on the bottom and POISON on the other side. On the neck of the bottle was a small sticker that said GUARANTEED TO WORK.

I am skeptical.

I got another 15 gallons or so of water out of the carpet pad tonight, and water has taken to pooling near the drain. I used the shop vac to pick up whatever water I could from the drain before starting to pour the chemicals down there. I got just under 1/4 of the bottle poured out before it started pooling, but the bottle said to use all of the product at once for best results. So I now have a puddle of severe chemicals in my utility room.

Hopefully I will either wake up tomorrow with an unstopped basement drain or a hole eaten through my foundation. Either way, water will be able to evacuate. Otherwise, its back to the drawing board. I do know one thing… with the amount od spray-off that the shop vac has been providing I am NOT going to vacuum up any spare chemical that may remain tomorrow, lest I be blinded.