No one escapes the microbiome
December 10, 2016 8:06 AM   Subscribe

What’s Lurking in Your Showerhead-An examination of the microbial habitat inside a showerhead that might be a lot like yours.
posted by nevercalm (35 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Fortuitously I just cleaned my showerhead before coming downstairs and getting on the computer, so I can read this thread with a smug sense of superiority. I also noticed that in the long list of organisms in there they didn't have tardigrades; surely they must be there too?
posted by TedW at 8:24 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you're going to clean your showerheads, how about your pipes?
posted by Bee'sWing at 8:39 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


People clean their showerheads? I feel like I am doing well if I get the sinks clean every week.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:40 AM on December 10, 2016 [16 favorites]


If you're going to clean your showerheads, how about your pipes?

These pipes are clean!
posted by TedW at 8:44 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


And if you live in the arid West, you have nothing to worry about. I just checked my Colorado showerhead for you, and it's as clean as a whistle. Not a coach's whistle, those would be gross. But like the emergency camping whistle which I've used once every decade or two to make sure it works.
posted by kozad at 8:46 AM on December 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


We used to dream of cleaning the sinks every week
posted by Auden at 8:49 AM on December 10, 2016 [17 favorites]


I don't want to know. This is why I face away from the shower.
posted by obfuscation at 9:03 AM on December 10, 2016 [34 favorites]



I don't want to know. This is why I face away from the shower
.

No. We're not restarting that debate.
posted by greermahoney at 9:16 AM on December 10, 2016 [15 favorites]


I am used to feeling slob-shamed because I detest cleaning so I was reading this with the usual sensation of shame mixed with defiance (I'm a terrible person I don't even take my showerhead apart and clean it fuck that as if I have time). Then I got to the part which my brain read as "Don't clean it! It's way healthy to have colonies in your shower because immunity and that!" and now I'm feeling smug about a cleaning habit for the first time ever. Yay science!
posted by billiebee at 9:22 AM on December 10, 2016 [13 favorites]


Wait, what? I did something right!?! .... er rather didn't do something ever that turns out to be the right thing to not do! Well, yea me.
posted by sammyo at 9:41 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I deliberately and decisively deleted this email from Rob Dunn & co without a second thought, because no way in hell was I opening up my showerhead and swabbing whatever's inside.
posted by deludingmyself at 9:54 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Our showerhead operates via one of those little lift-up valves in the tub faucet, and whenever water is running directly into the tub, the showerhead sucks air.

So whatever is aerosolized in the bathroom inoculates the showerhead and pipes; I wouldn't be surprised if you could recover our DNA from in there, biofilm willing.
posted by jamjam at 9:57 AM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


We used to dream of cleaning the sinks every week

Well, when I say 'sink' it was only a hole in the ground lined with a plastic garbage bag, but it was a sink to us!
posted by Zedcaster at 10:36 AM on December 10, 2016 [7 favorites]


“showerdough.” “Although superficially it’s kind of gross

Yes, it is
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:41 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ahem.
posted by billiebee at 11:08 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ahem.

Ahhhhh... So I'm in agreement with the first five comments in that thread.
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:19 AM on December 10, 2016


Ahhhhh... So I'm in agreement with the first five comments in that thread.

I'd eat the vagina-yeast bread but I wouldn't want to lick a showerhead. I doubt either makes any sense, but those are my immediate reactions.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:32 AM on December 10, 2016


I also noticed that in the long list of organisms in there they didn't have tardigrades; surely they must be there too?

A friend of mine used to work with wild tardigrades for a biological supply company. When I first learned of tardigrades, I wanted to go out and catch a bunch since they should be "everywhere". She quickly dissuaded me from that notion. They're both common and not- they can be very peculiar about their habitat, and not always what you'd expect. You might find an absolute gold mine of them on the shingles of a shaded roof growing mosses, but the house two doors away with the exact same setup would be none. And you look in the habitat they should be next to the roof, the damp, shaded mossy patch of lawn; none to be found.

I never did go out hunting tardigrades, I was so discouraged after her description.

I do recall her saying they liked consistently damp, shady areas. Not too wet, not too dry, and not a lot of fluctuation in conditions. I would guess that would make a showerhead maybe not too ideal with the flushing of water daily.

Or maybe not!!!
posted by [insert clever name here] at 11:48 AM on December 10, 2016


I'd eat the vagina-yeast bread but I wouldn't want to lick a showerhead

oh Metafilter, how I do love thee
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:51 AM on December 10, 2016 [8 favorites]


oh lord i don't even care

is it nazis

prolly
posted by poffin boffin at 12:07 PM on December 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is disgusting and horrible and so of course I signed up immediately. I really hope I get to participate.

In the meantime, I'll be over here busily not looking at what kind of sludge is inside my showerhead.
posted by telepanda at 12:43 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


[insert clever name here], you may be interested in this post from last month. I say open up your shower head and report back. But only on the tardigrades. I'd like to keep pretending the inside of my showerhead is blissfully free of a giant biofilm of goop.
posted by deludingmyself at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2016


Not clicking, not reading, not checking. I lose enough sleep as it is.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 1:04 PM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Hmm I'm not about to check my showerhead, but when the condensation drain for my HVAC backed up last summer, the guy who came out to fix it pried the perforated cap off the end of the pipe and extracted this baseball-sized clot of... snot? Whatever it was, I'd just as soon not think about it building up in indoors plumbing fixtures.
posted by indubitable at 1:06 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


The only thing I've found in my showerhead was a chunk of metal. The water up these ways is hard af.
posted by Sphinx at 1:10 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: I doubt either makes any sense, but those are my immediate reactions.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:29 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


My dad spent his entire working life in plumbing and heating. When he was in his late 50s, he sold his wholesale supply business and got his plumber's license—perhaps the only time in history someone became a plumber after retirement. (Truth be told, he just wanted an excuse to get out of the house and hang out with his buddies.)

Dad never once mentioned the need to clean out a showerhead. He passed in 2007 and out of respect for him, I'm not going to start now.

(Miss you, Dad.)
posted by she's not there at 1:35 PM on December 10, 2016 [9 favorites]


Well, when I say 'sink' it was only a hole in the ground lined with a plastic garbage bag, but it was a sink to us!

Plastic bag?!? You were lucky!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:27 PM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is why I wear an NBC suit while showering.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:19 PM on December 10, 2016


You were lucky to have ground! We had to float around in the primordial yelm and perform our ablutions with raw nuclei.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:06 AM on December 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


I never had anyone to teach me the proper ablution technique so I just had to sort of splash about in the sea of nothingness
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:28 AM on December 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Sort of related: back when I was a typographer operating phototypesetting equipment, the paper required processing through a machine which dragged it through various baths to develop, quick-fix and rinse the stuff. The "rinse" tank, just tap water, was kept at a steady warm temperature and cleaning it was my least favorite chore.

When I did clean it--usually after a month or so (hey, I know, it was a busy newspaper)--the rinse bath would often be occupied by a living thing--a slug-like mass the consistency of thick mucus which would reside in the bottom of the tank and, when the tank was dumped, would slide out in one piece. I had co-workers who begged to be present so they could shriek and gag as it writhed its way down the drain.

My guess is that the Tank Creatures represented peak development of showerhead fauna exposed to photo chemicals. Those things were impressive.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:34 AM on December 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


A sea of nothingness? Well, look at the aristocrat, folks!
We only had a small pond of nothingness, and we enjoyed it.
posted by eclectist at 8:11 AM on December 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


You had space-time? You were damn lucky. We only had t' naked singularly before t' Big Bang, but we were glad to have that. Kids today don't know how lucky they are, the ignorant little buggers!
posted by monotreme at 11:33 AM on December 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


What naked singularity? You had an entire infinite universe, but didn't know it since everything had long since been converted to an undistinguished soup of low energy photons by the evaporation of black holes over trillions of years.
posted by wierdo at 3:57 PM on December 11, 2016


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