I came home from my trip to NY and there was a pretty bad stink in the kitchen.
Smelled like garbage.
It didn't take long to zero in on the source -- the garbage disposal.
I tried pouring all kinds of cleaning stuff down the drain, to no avail, the smell didn't go away.
Then I did a search on the Internet, found a variety of suggestions, and felt pretty sure that I'd have to call a plumber because they all seemed to assume skills and/or tools I didn't have. Instead I tried a very simple idea and amazingly it worked.
1. Put a drain stopper in the disposal so no water can flow out through the bottom
2. Fill the sink with hot water mixed with soap and chlorine bleach. The hotter the water the better.
3. With the water running put one hand on the stopper and the other on the switch, as you pull out the stopper, turn on the switch. (Be sure to do it in that order, to keep your hand from getting chopped up!)
4. Let all the water run out of the sink and leave the water running as long as there's suds.
5. Repeat two or three times. Wait a day or two. With any luck the smell will be gone.
The reason this works is that junk gets stuck on the walls of the drain, and since it's garbage, it rots and stinks. By immersing it in soapy water, the junk gets dislodged and goes down the drain and out of your life.
Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:53 PM
~About the Author~
Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.
"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.
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