Why does the toilet smell of shit? asks the venerable sibling.
Because there's shit there, I reply.
Really? he says. But it's all flushed. Don't tell me it's stuck somewhere ...
It's actually a phenomenon that tends to occur in the late night. No, not the inane exchanges (those happen throughout the day), but the smell.
If you've ever taken time to observe the ceiling of your bathroom or even under your sink, you'd've noticed a U-shaped pipe that's part of the drainage system. That's actually a water trap that's supposed to block noxious sewer gases from rising into the bathroom.
It works with a grid and/or strainer (also known as the holey drainage cover) to block stuff that will cause clogs, and a vent pipe, which supplies air (for pressure) into the system to stop water in the trap from being sucked out. If you don't understand how that works, well, ask a Primary 6er. They might know. I was pretty horrified at how much a kid sitting for the PSLE is expected to know these days.
But back to the oh-so-sweet smell of sewage - it reminds me of the oh-so-cute flat I used to live in in Beijing. At first, I thought air fresheners would help. Nope. How about closing the bathroom door to stop the smell from pervading the entire flat? But the bathroom door couldn't actually be closed, so that didn't actually have the desired effect either. In any case, I didn't want to be hit in the face by sewage fumes everytime I entered the bathroom. Inhaling hydrogen sulfide is bad for health.
So the only thing to do was to cover up all the drainage holes. Thanks to the shoddy construction, the drainage pipe for the sink isn't exactly connected to the drainage system - it's just a shorn-off pipe ending just above one of the strainers in the floor, so that saved me from having to block up the sink too.
I suspect it's got something to do with the rise in air temperature when people take hot showers. Or all the sewer air that's heated up during the day having to go somewhere when the night cools. Hot air rises - I remember that much from science classes. They should teach more useful things in school. Plumbing, for instance, instead of hot air in balloons.
The moral of the story? One doesn't appreciate life's little conveniences until shit (or the smell of it) happens. I appreciate good drainage! Why is it not bestowed upon me, then?
