My husband and I just (3 weeks ago) moved into a 3BR/2BA rental house. We're in upstate SC, so the winter is pretty mild so far. The house had been vacant about 4 months before we moved in, and the landlord has alluded to the previous tenant having plumbing issues (something about his washer overflowing and damaging the floors).
Our first week here, the drains were very slow, and whenever you ran the kitchen sink you could hear noises in the nearby washer drain pipe (no washer yet, more on that in a sec). It is a 3' PVC pipe just sticking out of the floor of the laundry room, nothing attached, and you could hear it making gurgling/plinking noises (like Blue Man Group, if you've ever seen them. That noise.) We got our landlord to call in a plumber, and he called in the shadiest two dudes I've ever seen. They supposedly replaced a lot of the pipes under the house, and things were good for about a week.
Now things are slow again, and we seem to have new problems. Whenever one of us takes a shower in the master bath, the toilet gurgles. When we run one of the sinks in the master bath, they both back up and drain slowly. When we run the kitchen sink for more than 2-3 seconds, both sides of the kitchen sink and the dishwasher fill with water and take about 20 minutes to drain. When we run the dishwasher, the kitchen sinks each fill with 6-7" of standing water.
What do we do? I know when we tell the landlord he's just going to call in the same shady craigslist guys he got last time to try and save money. The most pressing concerns for us as renters are the kitchen sink and the very likely possibility that when we put in a washer after Christmas we will not be able to use it because of the slow draining issues. I'm pregnant and due in February, so having a functional washer/dryer in the house is pretty high on my list of priorities at the moment.
We've tried a plunger, drano, and a cheap drain snake on the kitchen sink to no avail. I'm thinking it must be an issue further down the pipes since it affects the whole house, or possibly something to do with the venting (gurgling toilets?). If anyone can either give us simple things we can try on our own or things to suggest to the "plumber" that shows up, I'd be really grateful.
Our first week here, the drains were very slow, and whenever you ran the kitchen sink you could hear noises in the nearby washer drain pipe (no washer yet, more on that in a sec). It is a 3' PVC pipe just sticking out of the floor of the laundry room, nothing attached, and you could hear it making gurgling/plinking noises (like Blue Man Group, if you've ever seen them. That noise.) We got our landlord to call in a plumber, and he called in the shadiest two dudes I've ever seen. They supposedly replaced a lot of the pipes under the house, and things were good for about a week.
Now things are slow again, and we seem to have new problems. Whenever one of us takes a shower in the master bath, the toilet gurgles. When we run one of the sinks in the master bath, they both back up and drain slowly. When we run the kitchen sink for more than 2-3 seconds, both sides of the kitchen sink and the dishwasher fill with water and take about 20 minutes to drain. When we run the dishwasher, the kitchen sinks each fill with 6-7" of standing water.
What do we do? I know when we tell the landlord he's just going to call in the same shady craigslist guys he got last time to try and save money. The most pressing concerns for us as renters are the kitchen sink and the very likely possibility that when we put in a washer after Christmas we will not be able to use it because of the slow draining issues. I'm pregnant and due in February, so having a functional washer/dryer in the house is pretty high on my list of priorities at the moment.
We've tried a plunger, drano, and a cheap drain snake on the kitchen sink to no avail. I'm thinking it must be an issue further down the pipes since it affects the whole house, or possibly something to do with the venting (gurgling toilets?). If anyone can either give us simple things we can try on our own or things to suggest to the "plumber" that shows up, I'd be really grateful.
