Gas Smell Explained. F***** NEIGHBORS.

The last two nights Megan and I have had to spend the night away from home because of a nasty gasoline smell that was protruding from our bathroom. I will get into details, but first I need to give a short lesson on sewers in older Korean homes. Our shower has a direct line from the sewer to our bathroom. If you haven't already thought of what kind of issues that could cause, just take a minute to look at all of the piping in your home. Notice how all of the pipes have a U-shaped bend in them, if they come from a smelly source? This is not a coincidence, this bend keeps smelly gases from coming back up from the sewer. Normally this just causes a slight problem of a little stinky air coming back up, but the occasional drain-o, plus careful bathroom door management, will take care of the smell. This time, however, drain-o was not the solution.

After we finished hiking the mountain on Sunday, we got back to the slightest of gasoline smell in our home. We didn't think much of it and headed over to Jeff's. We got back from dinner, and the smell was much worse, coming specifically from the bathroom. Of course this is quite alarming, knowing what I just explained above. We were getting headaches from the few minutes we'd been inside, so we decided to spend the night at Jeff's (who graciously accepted).

The next day our boss came over, and thought that we could possible detour the smell by pouring water down our drains. This seemed to help slightly, combined with our windows being open all afternoon, so we left for work as usual. When we got back the smell was as strong as ever. We called up our boss, who agreed that if we are getting sick, we should spend the night in the hotel (on his dime, though he wasn't too happy).

At 10AM this morning JS came back, and talked to the neighbors. Here's what happened. The dummies oil tank which held the oil to heat their home broke and spilled into the Sewer!!! Are you kidding me??? The didn't bother to tell the neighbors!!! Knowing the sewer explanation I gave above, wouldn't it cross your mind to let someone know??? ... They have know that the smell well seep into neighbors homes, let alone the affect it could have on the water... But no... They didn't bother to tell anyone. Well, JS figured out why, and we are going to follow up today to make sure these fools actually alert the CITY to what they did. This could threaten the health of our entire neighborhood, especially us... Who knows what could have happened if someone dropped a cigarette in (since the sewers are just also accessible from street level)...

F******************* NEIGHBORS!!! Apparently wisdom doesn't come with age.