Slow draining bathroom sink

I have a problem sink. Our master bathroom sink is always causing me fits. Usually it is a foul smell that just shows up randomly. I've been told that it is either a dried up P trap, or something foul in the overflow tube in the sink. Either way, that is not the issue right now.

Every so often it drains slow. Usually because I trimmed my sideburns or over my ears after clipping my hair, and some of it goes in the drain. Sometimes it is just a buildup of my wife's hair from making herself beautiful every morning. One time I took the P trap off to find a half moon sliver of soap/toothpaste/scum/calcium had been growing in the bottom.

Well a couple weeks ago after I had washed some hair clippings (not a lot either, I'm not a total idiot) down the drain, it started draining really slow. I mean not like minutes to drain, but slow enough that you couldn't leave the water running for very long. When you were brushing your teeth your toothpaste spit would just float around, pretty nasty.

So I took the trap off, and it was surprisingly clean. I pulled the drain plug out and UGGGHHH. Super nasty! I cleaned if off and using a hanger scraped the top portion of the drain itself clean. After that it was flowing perfectly. Until a couple days ago.

Slow draining once again and no real idea why. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and when I figure out what is causing this (probably later tonight) I'll post it. But I need to know how to really prevent this altogether! Garbage disposal in the bathroom??? They need to make a toilet with one of those, then we wouldn't need plungers.

Toilet Flappers

Ok, so I've had 3 running toilets for a couple of months. They don't run constantly, I just notice them filling the tanks up from time to time. So I took a closer look at the one in our basement and noticed that there was a little drip that was pretty constant into the bowl. This mean that the flapper wasn't getting a good seal.

So I turned off the water and flushed the toilet to drain the tank. Then I took a paper towel and cleaned off the bottom side of the flapper and the hole in the tank that it covers (I'm not sure what the technical term is). I figured that maybe it was just some sort of buildup that had caused the failing seal. Then I turned the water back on and let it fill. No more drip! For about a day. Time to replace the flapper.

So there are about 5 different flappers at my nearby hardware store and the same number at Walmart. I chose one in the middle, not the cheapest, and not the $10 ones either. There are some that are for specific toilets, but I chose a universal fit. Installation was simple, just cut off the rubber ring that is for toilets with brass drain tubes and hook the new flapper on. I then had to hook the "chain" which was rubber on this one, to the flush lever and we are back in business. No more leak! However, it turns out that when I was putting the toilet back together, I didn't get the float screwed back on very well and when somebody flushed one day it fell off. That meant that the toilet WOULD run constantly. It just kept draining down the tube.

Since then I bought 2 more flappers, this time from Home Depot. I bought a little bit fancier models this time, $6 each. These have some sort of float on them to adjust the amount of water that is used during each flush. They also are made from some material that resists chlorine and other common chemicals that would break down rubber. I don't think it was the chemicals that caused the original ones to fail. When I finally got the old one off, I could see that it just wasn't flat anymore. Somehow it had warped a little, and I guess the water pressure wasn't enough to keep a good seal. I'll let you know in about 4 years if these are any better than the originals.