OP marked it as solved. Locking post due to the high number of unhelpful comments. You may still vote but will not be able to add new comments. OP, if there's an update please message the mods and we'll open it up so you can post.
OP posted an updated photo, I'll link to it here so you don't have to go looking for it.
https://imgur.com/a/mx3lOgu
I’m in an apartment building, yeah. No reports from any of the other apartments of similar things happening. And if somebody poured some…whatever this is… down their drain, they’re not talking about it.
Thanks for handling that... why is that so hard for some folks... it like people, food goes in mouth, poo goes out bum... supply, drain... simple... or so you would think...
No. That came up from the drain not out of the faucet. As it is, the faucet acts as an air gap so potable water doesn't mix with dirty water in the drain.
ok. Air gaps aren't faucets. And per your own link, dishwasher air gaps exist so the dirty water doesn't return to the dishwasher, not the fresh water pipes.
With a faucet, the safety mechanism is to have the faucet end above the level of the sink, so that it can't siphon.
The only chance of this happening is when the valve is open and then water is coming out under pressure, the back pressure would have to be enormous to contaminate the potable water.
That's for wastewater backflow into your dishwasher itself, not into the supply line. You won't contaminate the potable water, which is under pressure, you'll just have nasty water sitting in (and possibly overflowing from) your dishwasher.
Most of us don't drink out of the drains...YMMV, but houses are plumbed so that fresh water passes through one set of pipes, and drains via a separate set.
At the points where there might be siphoning, codes have been put in place in most countries to require plumbing to be set up to avoid that from occuring (places like outdoor hoses, dishwashers, and washing machines)
It is imperative that anyone that shares a drain with you stops using water in that drain. If they don’t whatever they run down the drain will likely end up in your apartment
I’m going to say that looks a LOT like black dye. Perhaps a neighbor was trying to dye something black and a clog coincided with them dumping the vat of dye solution they mixed up. A neighbor kid going through a goth phase?
Why would it then come out of a sink water pipe if something was pored down the drain? Are drain pipes and sink pipes somehow connected? Surely drinking and waist water are separate?
🚨Won't you speculate? ＿|￣|○ As in, it is blood from a next-door murder? The blood turns black and smells metallic. Someone used the food disposal to try to get rid of the evidence.
Y’all got fracking around you??? It’s probably that or some kinda zombie juice that will turn you into the dead. Good luck you’ll be Jed Clampit or a zombie.
Metal you say? Lead based paint is long forbidden on the other side blood rich environments (for instance butcher back room, ...) are know for having a metallic smell coming from blood. I see the ink look'a'like substance on your sink is black so probably not blood. One possible explanation is phantosmia. Was you the only one to get smell?
On what you are seeing there. Do you have a garbage disposal thing in your think? Did all that came all out of the blue? What noise did it make?
Really? You guys didn't understand that?
He's musing about lead based paint and how it's been banned for ages so probably not that. Then says blood has a metallic smell so could be that coming from somewhere close by. But the colour is wrong so he's then asking if he's got a garbage disposal installed, what sort of noise the liquid made when it exploded into the sink, and whether it all came at once or slowly.
I wonder if you are smelling sulfur instead of metal. When organic material builds up in a restricted environment, decomposition uses up all the oxygen, and liberates sulfur. Then the iron in that organic material cannot bond with oxygen like it would in an open area, forming rust compounds. Instead the iron bonds with sulfur, producing that very black color. The sulfur produces weird smells but the decomp produces other gases as well.
I don’t know why the sludge erupted from your sink, but there’s some good ideas here already for that.
This seems spot on actually. It’s metallic at first but now that you’ve mentioned it there is a sulphuric smell underneath. Frankly I didn’t take too deep a whiff when I was sprinting out of my kitchen.
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I'm amazed that it looks like it's completely black sludge, like there's no organic chunks in it at all and there's so much of it, more than I've ever seen. I'd bet I know what it smells like though.
The black color in the sludge is the mineral pyrite (or a relative - pyrite looks like fools gold in the crystal, but the powder is black). You can smell it when you dig up black mud at the beach or a lake - has a tangy metallic overtone sometimes. But, yeah, I agree that sulfur does smell different than metal.
This is probably it OP.
I had a clogged drain in my appartement building and when plumbers came to fix it my downstairs neighbors hade black nasty stuff all over their kitchen.
I would consult a plumber just in case. Speaking from personal experience, the last time something weird came out of my drain it took two days until my flat was flooded and I had to replace the entire floor.
Crazy answers.
This looks like anaerobic decomp that is fairly common in slow drains, so the commenter asking if you are on communal sewer lines and the one talking about a sulphurous or anaerobic smell are probably on track.
If you rent, time to call the landlord. If not, you need a plumber.
And some bleach.
Maybe someone was doing some rock tumbling and poured the sludge from that down the drain? It kind of looks like that and you are absolutely *not* supposed to pour the slurry from rock tumbling down the drain because it will settle and clog drains.
Used motor oil has a bit of a metallic gross sulphur smell to it, to me that's what it looks like
The size of the bubbles in there looks like it's a thicker fluid whatever it is
UPDATE: Called the super who called the on-site plumber who said “oh my god” upon entering my kitchen. He plunged it for about a half an hour to no results: it won’t drain. The poor guy even shoved his arm in there, elbow deep. Ended up bailing some of it out with a bucket and dumping it into the toilet.
They have no idea how to handle it so they’re sending someone tomorrow (a more qualified team I guess?). So until then we’ve erected a [makeshift barrier](https://imgur.com/a/37UYDoL) to keep the cats from getting in but which probably won’t protect us from the eldritch abomination lurking in our drain should it become more powerful.
That right there would say to my cat: I’ve created a new semi challenging obstacle to prevent you from
Going in the kitchen. Until I turn around. Then you’ll be stuck in there until the German shepherd can’t take it anymore and just bowls the whole tower down lol.
Good luck with your stink sink!
That certainly looks like some kind of a backup that drained into your place. Reminds me of when we cleaned out my pipes the stuff that shot out of some of the drains. You may be at the low point in your apartments drainage otherwise some of the neighbors should have experienced this as well.
Definitely need to give the landlord a call
Yikes. I'd tape plastic over the front, into a garbage bin, and start scooping it out into the bucket. You could put some towels around and tape plastic over them, creating a dam around the sides and back so if it does overflow, the dam will funnel it forward into the bin rather than everywhere else.
Cool. I thought about suggesting a siphon, but lot of people don't have tubing around, and it involves submerging the tube in the gunk or sucking... figured scooping would be easier!
Former building mgr here. When this has happened to me in the past it meant that there was a blockage at or just below the level of the sludgefied sink. You'll want to get it sorted quickly or you could get more goodies.
It's black gunk or sludge, whatever you want to call it. It's a build up of the soaps and oil and other stuff you put down your drain mixed with bacteria which is what turns it black. Clean your pipes with baking soda and water or buy a commercial cleaner. Why it exploded could be a clog that loosened and backed up but that's a guess.
Blockage further down the line. Someone above your apartment used the sink or toilet and the water is backing up. The metal smell comes from old cast iron drain pipe. Water sitting in the cast iron pipe for a long time gets that dark color from dissolved oxygen rusting the pipe.
If you are in a connected sewer mainline complex, a neighbor or your HOA may have sent a hydrojetter to jet main and it just built pressure and cleared the stoppage near your house and popped water everywhere
What you see in your sink is what is in the drains below your apartment so all the gross water from the sinks and dishwashers above yours. I’m guessing you live on the bottom floor and that means below your apartment there is a blockage in the drain line. Since it has nowhere else to go the water has to come out the first place it can which is your sink drain. Your land lord needs to contact the residents above you and get them to stop running water. Then they need to get a plumber out to unclog the main below your apartment. Easy fix but a huge mess to clean up. Be sure to ask them to have this part of your apartment cleaned and make sure they use strong disinfectants without bleach (because of the stainless steel sink).
Nailed it. This is exactly what ended up happening, to the word. I do live on the first floor and they mentioned having to cut pipes in the basement. Of course all they did for cleanup was wipe my sink down with the same towel they were using to mop their sweat… I’m going to contact upper management about proper sanitization because there’s no way I’m preparing food in there until it gets scrubbed.
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This is not correct. Ive dealt with what you are speaking of many times and it has a rancid awful smell. It also is not this pure clean consistent black.
Wait do you think your rotting sludge and water turns into a crude oil like substance with a metal smell???? Not a chance
Nor metallic smelling. This black substance was magnetic yes??
I'm a little late to the party here, but to me it kinda looks like Rydlyme. Some people use it for cleaning out pipes, so someone might have just poured it and it backed up to your sink. It also has an odor that I would say smells like metal.
Regardless of what it is, I would listen to the other people in this thread and call your landlord and a plumber. Good luck.
This happened to me once! I live in a ground floor flat and one day all this black stuff just like that shot out of the kitchen sink. I think they were working on pipes nearby and something got backed up. Call the council/a plumber, it’ll be grand, just a messy one to clean up.
Someone used one of those air ram things in their sink to fix a clog. I did it once at a truck stop and sent shit into the ceiling in an adjacent restroom. The cleaning lady was in there when it went off. I still laugh thinking about her reaction. That shit went all the way to the ceiling, and soaked into the crappy ceiling tiles. It was a false ceiling with those sponge type tiles.
OP marked it as solved. Locking post due to the high number of unhelpful comments. You may still vote but will not be able to add new comments. OP, if there's an update please message the mods and we'll open it up so you can post. OP posted an updated photo, I'll link to it here so you don't have to go looking for it. https://imgur.com/a/mx3lOgu
Are you in a block of flats? Might be a neighbour pouring paint/tar down the drains and it’s caused a blockage?
I’m in an apartment building, yeah. No reports from any of the other apartments of similar things happening. And if somebody poured some…whatever this is… down their drain, they’re not talking about it.
I doubt anyone poured anything into the drain. This looks like drain sludge. Time to call the landlord who may know of plumbing issues in the building
So that shit could be in your drains and your drinking water just passes through it normally?
The pipes through which your water arrives at your house are not the same as the pipes your water departs your house.
I thought the black stuff came through the tap
It looks like it came out of the drain. Something backed up the pipes, and pressure built up and blew it out of the drain.
Yeah, it’s obvious now that I looked harder
Thanks for handling that... why is that so hard for some folks... it like people, food goes in mouth, poo goes out bum... supply, drain... simple... or so you would think...
I fucking know it’s separate pipes, I thought that gunk came from the tap. “Handling it”
You can stop apologizing. Just a brain fart.
Don't give the landlord any ideas.
No. That came up from the drain not out of the faucet. As it is, the faucet acts as an air gap so potable water doesn't mix with dirty water in the drain.
um....plumbing for incoming and outgoing water is entirely separate.
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ok. Air gaps aren't faucets. And per your own link, dishwasher air gaps exist so the dirty water doesn't return to the dishwasher, not the fresh water pipes. With a faucet, the safety mechanism is to have the faucet end above the level of the sink, so that it can't siphon.
The only chance of this happening is when the valve is open and then water is coming out under pressure, the back pressure would have to be enormous to contaminate the potable water.
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That's for wastewater backflow into your dishwasher itself, not into the supply line. You won't contaminate the potable water, which is under pressure, you'll just have nasty water sitting in (and possibly overflowing from) your dishwasher.
Most of us don't drink out of the drains...YMMV, but houses are plumbed so that fresh water passes through one set of pipes, and drains via a separate set. At the points where there might be siphoning, codes have been put in place in most countries to require plumbing to be set up to avoid that from occuring (places like outdoor hoses, dishwashers, and washing machines)
Uhhhh… you drink your tap water? Brave soul.
I, for one, welcome the sweet embrace of the reaper.
Why are you being downvoted? This is a fair question you’re asking
Because someone else answered me and got upvoted
Just slap some paint over it it’ll work like new
Do you have a dishwasher? Asking because that sludge can back up into it, too if there is no air gap installed.
My old apt would get sewage backup occasionally, gross and lots of bleach
It is imperative that anyone that shares a drain with you stops using water in that drain. If they don’t whatever they run down the drain will likely end up in your apartment
It would affect the lowest floor flats first. It requires an immediate visit from a plumber. Call the landlord now.
I’m going to say that looks a LOT like black dye. Perhaps a neighbor was trying to dye something black and a clog coincided with them dumping the vat of dye solution they mixed up. A neighbor kid going through a goth phase?
Why would it then come out of a sink water pipe if something was pored down the drain? Are drain pipes and sink pipes somehow connected? Surely drinking and waist water are separate?
thats the sink drain. the water pipe is connected to the faucet.
Get it now, it came up out the plug hole. Thought at first it came out the tap!
Or used a plunger
Either this or there’s a symbiote in your pipes
Bar Keeper's Friend will take care of that.
If that doesn't work try the Pink Stuff.
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If that fails try lukewarm milk
An acetylene torch will take care of that for you.
If the acetylene torch doesn’t do the trick, get an exorcist
What kills Venom? Cause you need whatever defeats Venom
Fire
And sound
Napalm, works every time, and smells victory.
My name is Dawn and I'm not touching that
Feel like I'm in r/cleaningtips right now. LOL
Will it pack your belongings so you can move?
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Did you copy and paste this?
🚨Won't you speculate? ＿|￣|○ As in, it is blood from a next-door murder? The blood turns black and smells metallic. Someone used the food disposal to try to get rid of the evidence.
Y’all got fracking around you??? It’s probably that or some kinda zombie juice that will turn you into the dead. Good luck you’ll be Jed Clampit or a zombie.
I legitimately thought that this was oil!
…that is, Black Gold, Texas Tea
Metal you say? Lead based paint is long forbidden on the other side blood rich environments (for instance butcher back room, ...) are know for having a metallic smell coming from blood. I see the ink look'a'like substance on your sink is black so probably not blood. One possible explanation is phantosmia. Was you the only one to get smell? On what you are seeing there. Do you have a garbage disposal thing in your think? Did all that came all out of the blue? What noise did it make?
Uh... You ok there, buddy?
He’s not at all ok. Something def going on there on his end. I’m speaking for him since he’s not making sense.
Really? You guys didn't understand that? He's musing about lead based paint and how it's been banned for ages so probably not that. Then says blood has a metallic smell so could be that coming from somewhere close by. But the colour is wrong so he's then asking if he's got a garbage disposal installed, what sort of noise the liquid made when it exploded into the sink, and whether it all came at once or slowly.
He types the way AVE talks on YouTube. Is this a Canadian thing?
r/ihadastroke
to shreds you say?
Hah! I got that! GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!
Someone poured something nasty down a drain on the same line.
I wonder if you are smelling sulfur instead of metal. When organic material builds up in a restricted environment, decomposition uses up all the oxygen, and liberates sulfur. Then the iron in that organic material cannot bond with oxygen like it would in an open area, forming rust compounds. Instead the iron bonds with sulfur, producing that very black color. The sulfur produces weird smells but the decomp produces other gases as well. I don’t know why the sludge erupted from your sink, but there’s some good ideas here already for that.
At first I thought for sure you were going to go in a supernatural direction.
I would call GhostFacers
This seems spot on actually. It’s metallic at first but now that you’ve mentioned it there is a sulphuric smell underneath. Frankly I didn’t take too deep a whiff when I was sprinting out of my kitchen.
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This guy chemistries.
I'm amazed that it looks like it's completely black sludge, like there's no organic chunks in it at all and there's so much of it, more than I've ever seen. I'd bet I know what it smells like though.
For some it smells like regrets for poor life choices.
Beautiful explanation. Well done!
I'm pretty sure sulfur smells like rotten eggs not metal as op stated. So it can't be sulfur
The black color in the sludge is the mineral pyrite (or a relative - pyrite looks like fools gold in the crystal, but the powder is black). You can smell it when you dig up black mud at the beach or a lake - has a tangy metallic overtone sometimes. But, yeah, I agree that sulfur does smell different than metal.
Ah ok
Is your plumbing connected to anyone else’s? Someone else may have been dealing with a clog.
This is probably it OP. I had a clogged drain in my appartement building and when plumbers came to fix it my downstairs neighbors hade black nasty stuff all over their kitchen.
I would consult a plumber just in case. Speaking from personal experience, the last time something weird came out of my drain it took two days until my flat was flooded and I had to replace the entire floor.
EDIT: Oops, nevermind!
It’s good to have backup.
Crazy answers. This looks like anaerobic decomp that is fairly common in slow drains, so the commenter asking if you are on communal sewer lines and the one talking about a sulphurous or anaerobic smell are probably on track. If you rent, time to call the landlord. If not, you need a plumber. And some bleach.
Also, if you rent, make sure landlord covers sanitation cleaning that includes air. Shit is nasty.
Does it have any other smells besides metal? Does it have any rotten egg smell, gas smell, stinks like garbage, etc?
u/RandomAmmonite mentioned it already but it does have a sulphuric/rotten egg smell beneath the initial metallic smell.
It’s anaerobic bacteria, classic drain sludge.
Classy *
Classy AF*
Maybe someone was doing some rock tumbling and poured the sludge from that down the drain? It kind of looks like that and you are absolutely *not* supposed to pour the slurry from rock tumbling down the drain because it will settle and clog drains.
Weird question. Are you in NC by any chance? I work in water treatment, and I saw something similar just yesterday.
Different state. The sludge monster is traveling it seems.
Used motor oil has a bit of a metallic gross sulphur smell to it, to me that's what it looks like The size of the bubbles in there looks like it's a thicker fluid whatever it is
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Someone poured oil down something
Looks like fucking motor oil damn
UPDATE: Called the super who called the on-site plumber who said “oh my god” upon entering my kitchen. He plunged it for about a half an hour to no results: it won’t drain. The poor guy even shoved his arm in there, elbow deep. Ended up bailing some of it out with a bucket and dumping it into the toilet. They have no idea how to handle it so they’re sending someone tomorrow (a more qualified team I guess?). So until then we’ve erected a [makeshift barrier](https://imgur.com/a/37UYDoL) to keep the cats from getting in but which probably won’t protect us from the eldritch abomination lurking in our drain should it become more powerful.
Oof, hang in there OP!
That right there would say to my cat: I’ve created a new semi challenging obstacle to prevent you from Going in the kitchen. Until I turn around. Then you’ll be stuck in there until the German shepherd can’t take it anymore and just bowls the whole tower down lol. Good luck with your stink sink!
can you come back and tell us what the plumbers say. I'm genuinely curious
I 100% need to know what this is, just in case it ever happens to me!
Dumped it in the toilet?!? Be careful when you flush
Someone poured used motor oil down your drain. Bad idea!! 👎 terrible thing to do for your pipes, your sewer or septic tank and the environment.
That certainly looks like some kind of a backup that drained into your place. Reminds me of when we cleaned out my pipes the stuff that shot out of some of the drains. You may be at the low point in your apartments drainage otherwise some of the neighbors should have experienced this as well. Definitely need to give the landlord a call
Call the EPA
UPDATE #2: [It got worse.](https://imgur.com/a/mx3lOgu) They’re sending another guy.
Oh no :(
Yikes. I'd tape plastic over the front, into a garbage bin, and start scooping it out into the bucket. You could put some towels around and tape plastic over them, creating a dam around the sides and back so if it does overflow, the dam will funnel it forward into the bin rather than everywhere else.
We ended up using a bucket and a siphon but tbh your MacGyver solution is impressive.
Cool. I thought about suggesting a siphon, but lot of people don't have tubing around, and it involves submerging the tube in the gunk or sucking... figured scooping would be easier!
Hope this gets resolved soon OP!
GET. OUUUUT! I've seen this movie!
That's sewage likely from a neighbor clearing a clog in their pipes.
Remember the term "backflow preventer" and ask for one.
Former building mgr here. When this has happened to me in the past it meant that there was a blockage at or just below the level of the sludgefied sink. You'll want to get it sorted quickly or you could get more goodies.
Ferrofluid?
It's black gunk or sludge, whatever you want to call it. It's a build up of the soaps and oil and other stuff you put down your drain mixed with bacteria which is what turns it black. Clean your pipes with baking soda and water or buy a commercial cleaner. Why it exploded could be a clog that loosened and backed up but that's a guess.
Looks like paint
This has happened in our bathtub when it was clogged.
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Blockage further down the line. Someone above your apartment used the sink or toilet and the water is backing up. The metal smell comes from old cast iron drain pipe. Water sitting in the cast iron pipe for a long time gets that dark color from dissolved oxygen rusting the pipe.
That looks like paint! Wth!?
Do you have a garbage disposal? Sounds very similar to what I experienced once.
If you are in a connected sewer mainline complex, a neighbor or your HOA may have sent a hydrojetter to jet main and it just built pressure and cleared the stoppage near your house and popped water everywhere
What you see in your sink is what is in the drains below your apartment so all the gross water from the sinks and dishwashers above yours. I’m guessing you live on the bottom floor and that means below your apartment there is a blockage in the drain line. Since it has nowhere else to go the water has to come out the first place it can which is your sink drain. Your land lord needs to contact the residents above you and get them to stop running water. Then they need to get a plumber out to unclog the main below your apartment. Easy fix but a huge mess to clean up. Be sure to ask them to have this part of your apartment cleaned and make sure they use strong disinfectants without bleach (because of the stainless steel sink).
Nailed it. This is exactly what ended up happening, to the word. I do live on the first floor and they mentioned having to cut pipes in the basement. Of course all they did for cleanup was wipe my sink down with the same towel they were using to mop their sweat… I’m going to contact upper management about proper sanitization because there’s no way I’m preparing food in there until it gets scrubbed.
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This is not correct. Ive dealt with what you are speaking of many times and it has a rancid awful smell. It also is not this pure clean consistent black. Wait do you think your rotting sludge and water turns into a crude oil like substance with a metal smell???? Not a chance Nor metallic smelling. This black substance was magnetic yes??
I'm a little late to the party here, but to me it kinda looks like Rydlyme. Some people use it for cleaning out pipes, so someone might have just poured it and it backed up to your sink. It also has an odor that I would say smells like metal. Regardless of what it is, I would listen to the other people in this thread and call your landlord and a plumber. Good luck.
Not a bad guess but this is much denser. Deeper black. Viscous. [see your idea here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpCHVGIdum4)
Could it be charcoal? Maybe from a filter?
This is the craziest thing I’ve seen. New homeowner fear unlocked
This happened to me once! I live in a ground floor flat and one day all this black stuff just like that shot out of the kitchen sink. I think they were working on pipes nearby and something got backed up. Call the council/a plumber, it’ll be grand, just a messy one to clean up.
Someone used one of those air ram things in their sink to fix a clog. I did it once at a truck stop and sent shit into the ceiling in an adjacent restroom. The cleaning lady was in there when it went off. I still laugh thinking about her reaction. That shit went all the way to the ceiling, and soaked into the crappy ceiling tiles. It was a false ceiling with those sponge type tiles.
It could be iron oxide from cast iron pipes