If you’ve never unscrewed the tip of your faucet to clean it out, you may want to go and do that right now.
And if you’re still not convinced that’s the right move, maybe seeing this post from TikToker James Butler (@jamesbutler299) may change your mind. In a viral TikTok that’s accrued over 297,000 views, he discussed how a family complained about getting sick. Suspecting it was their water supply, they phoned the tech, who found the source of the problem.
It was the sink aerator. And the image Butler shares of the family’s sink aerator is nausea-inducing.
Gross aerator
“We went out to do a service call on somebody with city water. Which is weird cause usually we take care of well water,” the TikToker says at the top of his video. “But, you know, they were insistent that we come out and try to solve their problem. The problem was people kept getting sick in the house.”
Initially, the service tech thought that the client’s issue wasn’t tied to their water supply.
“My first thought was take a vitamin. But, on further inspection, we found the problem,” he says.
He continues, “See, in your house, and in pretty much everybody else’s house, where the water comes out on your sink, there’s something called an aerator. It does a variety of functions from slowing the flow of water. To, you know, keeping grit out of your water. And if you don’t clean it, it looks like that.”
At this point in the video, the tech shows what the client’s aerator looked like. The picture shows an unscrewed sink aerator filled with gunk and what appears to be some kind of growth. “Now just to be clear, all the water that they were drinking was going directly through that,” he says.
So what should you do?
Butler recommended the following for folks worried their sink aerators may be gross. He recommends that folks clean their aerators monthly.
“So if this video was a middle school history test, here’s a cheat sheet. Go unscrew the aerator from your sink. Soak it in bleach, clean it,” he advises. “I would say do it at least monthly.”
And just like in Butler’s post, there have been reports of people falling ill using water from dirty faucets. This YouTuber suggested that folks also clean their aerators in this video tutorial.
The Spruce also published an article on how folks can go about cleaning their sink aerators as well.
TikTokers were horrified
One of the top comments left in response to the video was a request from someone who asked for a basic life skills series. “Sir, can you do a tutorial for those of us who didn’t grow up learning basic life skills please,” they asked.
But others said they grew up without aerators on their sinks. “I had teenagers I no longer have aerators on any of my sinks,” one wrote.
Someone else said that if the aerators are looking that bad, then there’s probably a problem with the pipes/water supply, too.
Another explained the many “teenage years” references that kept popping up in the comments. “Back when I was a teen, every faucet in the house got ‘cleaned’ often. if you know, you know,” they said.
Someone else replied that they are going to resort to extreme measures to remember to clean their aerators: “I am putting THAT picture on the inside of my kitchen cabinet to remind myself to do it periodically.”
While another recommended the following methodology: “Or just buy a five pack of them for about $10 and replace it every year or two.”
Others recommend cleaning aerators
A Redditor who also posted about sink aerators strongly urged others to clean the aerators in their homes’ water sources. “Yeah, that little screen on your faucet where all of your drinking/washing water comes out of? It screws off. If it’s stuck, use a strap wrench. Remove it, disassemble it (usually 2 to 3 pieces), and soak it in vinegar. Use an old toothbrush to remove any leftover deposits. Thank me later,” they wrote.
Throngs of other users on the platform echoed this sentiment. Such as this one commenter who penned: “It’s true, it gets crusty as [expletive.]”
Another Reddit user remarked that the aerators themselves don’t cost that much if they need to be replaced, too. “If it’s been too long since it was last regularly cleaned and no longer aerates even after cleaning, replace the aerator for a few dollars,” they said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Butler via TikTok comment for further information.
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