Thanksgiving cooking season brings abundance and, unfortunately, a surge in drain clogs caused by everyday kitchen waste. By understanding which items should never go down the drain, households can save on maintenance and avoid messy backups.

What to avoid pouring down the drain

Grease and fat solidify as they cool, coating pipes and trapping food particles to form stubborn blockages. Coffee grounds look like they should disappear in the sink, but they accumulate and compact, creating dense plogs that resist water flow. Potato peels, while compostable in many systems, can jam garbage disposals or snag on pipes, especially in older homes. Finally, dry or cooked rice swells with water and can trap debris, contributing to clogs when flushed or poured.

Grease and fats

Best practice: allow grease to cool and solidify in a nondrain container, then trash it. For sma ... Read more »

A sewer-like odor in a guest bathroom is almost always a plumbing or drainage issue. Because guests may notice it immediately, it’s worth treating the smell as a warning sign: even if the problem is small (like a dried-out trap), it can point to a pathway that allows sewer gas to escape into your home.

Below are the most common reasons a bathroom smells like sewer—and practical steps to identify the culprit.

1) A dry P-trap or floor drain

Every sink, tub, and many shower drains use a “P-trap” (or similar trap) filled with water. That water forms a barrier that keeps sewer gas from entering the room. If a bathroom is rarely used—or the drain hasn’t been run in a while—the trap can evaporate, leaving the barrier gone.

What to do: Run water in each drain (sink, shower, tub) for 30–60 seconds. If the smell fades, a dry trap was ... Read more »

Ice cubes are a popular home remedy for garbage disposals: the idea is that frozen water “scrubs” debris free and helps keep the unit sharp. But the claim that ice cubes truly sharpen disposal blades is more myth than mechanism.

Most disposals don’t rely on blade sharpness in the way knives do. Instead, they use a spinning grinding element that breaks food into smaller particles. In other words, performance depends far more on usage patterns, proper maintenance, and what you put into the disposal than on whether a person can make the metal “sharper.”

What ice cubes can do

When you run ice cubes through a disposal, the cubes can help dislodge stuck material and scour some residue from interior surfaces. That action may improve odor control temporarily by removing built-up food bits and grease that can contribute to smell.

For many households, the practical tak ... Read more »

Pet owners sometimes wonder whether cat litter or dog poop can be flushed down the toilet to make cleanup easier. The short answer is that it’s usually not recommended. Even when waste seems “biodegradable,” many common products and disposal practices can cause clogs, overwhelm wastewater treatment, or introduce contaminants into waterways.

Because local sewer systems and treatment facilities vary, the most reliable guidance comes from your city or utility’s rules. When in doubt, treat pet waste as solid waste and dispose of it through approved channels.

Why cat litter shouldn’t be flushed

Most cat litter is designed to absorb and clump in a way that’s meant for the litter box—not for toilet pipes. Flushing can lead to blockages, since clumps may not break down properly once wet and compressed in plumbing.

Clumpin ... Read more »