A viral travel hack suggests covering a sink drain with paper and an upside-down glass before leaving home to stop sewer odors and insects.<\/p>\n
While the idea is based on a real plumbing principle, experts say the method is unreliable.<\/p>\n
The key is the P-trap, the U-shaped pipe under drains that holds water to create a \u201cwater seal\u201d<\/strong> blocking sewer gases and pests.<\/p>\n If a drain goes unused for weeks, the water can evaporate, especially in hot or dry conditions, allowing odors or insects inside.<\/p>\n Although covering the drain may seem helpful, \u201cUnless the upside-down glass creates a tight seal over the drain opening, it\u2019s unlikely to do much of anything.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The paper can also become damp and fail to seal the drain.<\/p>\n Instead, before a long trip, run water through every sink, shower, and tub to refill the P-traps, then seal drains with existing stoppers, rubber plugs, silicone drain covers, or plastic wrap.<\/p>\n For extended vacations, adding a tablespoon of mineral oil can slow evaporation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A viral travel hack suggests covering a sink drain with paper and an upside-down glass before leaving home to stop sewer odors and insects. While the idea is based on a real plumbing principle, experts say the method is unreliable. The key is the P-trap, the U-shaped pipe under drains that holds water to create…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8474,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions\/8474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}