Used pipes + new shower = nasty water. How to fix?

Oh god I remember your earlier question. I still agree with the advice given there about contacting your city's building department and having an inspector come out. Your landlord has done something NOT OK to your plumbing here and you need to make sure he fixes it. IT IS BURNING YOUR EYES. God please call the city about this. This is really really really not ok.

I get the feeling that you've been dealing with this crazy landlord for so long that you've lost some perspective on how totally unacceptable all of this is. Which I really sympathize with -- I have done the same thing! I spent all winter working at home from an apartment where the heat and hot water didn't work 50% of the time! I had a friend stay in an apartment so infested with roaches that they were literally falling off the walls because she was anxious about moving! So I'm telling you, from an outside perspective: this is all completely ridiculously unreasonable. After your previous question, I'm kind of shocked you still live there. Moving is terrible, but this situation sounds untenable. You don't need this kind of pointless stress and trouble in you life.

https://ask.metafilter.com/269784/Used-pipes-new-shower-nasty-water-How-to-fix#3917254 He said that he will come over to run the water and check the other faucets in the house You understand that he's not impartial here, right? I'm sure he's going to find everything is tickety-poo, or needs just one small adjustment. You need to get authorities in there to make him obey the law. This is not how people are supposed to live.

I am a landlord and a more than competent general handyman, contractor, and specifically a competent plumber. And I remember your previous question. I have no fucking idea what he plausibly could have done to change the situation from no-debris to what you've got going on here. My best guess is the copper pipes were used previously to run something other than water? It doesn't matter. Everything about this is illegal and unacceptable, and it pisses me off that slumlords like this color people's perception of my profession. If nothing else, as a favor to me, call a tenant's rights organization and your city's building inspection department. Follow their advice and also look for a new place. This guy doesn't deserve your rent (though I am not advising that you withhold it).

the photo actually looks like the slime that comes out of clogged drain pipes. This could contain all kinds of nasty chemicals and bacteria, including fecal bacteria. For your landlord to have used old drain pipes to carry water to your shower head he would have to be some kind of plumbing savant. That wouldn't be a rookie error; it would be a deliberate, highly difficult, piece of sabotage. There would be no normal, straightforward way to hook drainpipe or sewer pipe up to any part of the existing domestic water system. what if it were not water, but sulfuric acid flowing through those pipes beforehand Seriously, what? People are really letting their imaginations run away with them in this thread.

First of all, you need to save all that gunk that came out, or gather new in case you have to have it analyzed later -- and take photographs of collecting it. I would also let the water sit in the pipes for 24 hours and collect the initial pint that comes out and save that in a glass jar. Not all used copper pipe necessarily carried pure water in its previous use, and that symptom of burning eyes makes me nervous. You might be able to get your utility to analyze the water simply by telling them strange stuff came out in the shower and burned your eyes.

Could be pipe corrosion, rust, lime scale, etc, from long unused pipes. You can let the shower run with no shower head on it for an hour or so see if it clears out. Dude, you've gotta move.

I IZ LANDLORD. I HAZ SAD FROM READING THIS POST. 1) Read through your local tenants' rights laws very carefully. Get in touch with an advocate, if at all possible. 2) Contact the local code inspector. Explain details. Get inspector out ASAP. (Warning: if issues are bad enough, the inspector may declare the property uninhabitable.) 3) This will annoy the landlord. Seriously, that's tough. He doesn't get to do stuff that leads to injury. 4) Your landlord needs to get a plumber out who actually knows what he's doing. With any luck, item #2 will make that happen. If it doesn't, point landlord to what you found while doing item #1 on this list. 5) #4 will cost the landlord money. I just spent $5K to replace a furnace that had developed some dangerous issues; spending lots of money happens if you're landlording. If the landlord is unwilling to do necessary repairs, then some combination of a) him ceasing to be a landlord and b) you ceasing to reside in this property needs to happen.

lol okay, sorry i'm furious that the OP is egregiously being taken advantage of by an incompetent idiot i guess OP, please, I beg you, call the city. Dial 311 and just read the text of this question and your last one to whoever takes your call. It's so hard living long-term with unreasonable horrible shit like this, and you eventually reach a point where you can no longer judge whether or not your complaints are valid, because your baseline of normality is so far off kilter. It really seems like you've reached that point, and it can only get worse from here if you can't bring yourself to put your foot down ASAP. The gunk in your pipes could be literally anything. They could have come from an industrial site using toxic chemicals. They could have come from a waste processing facility. God knows what this moron is going to do to your living space next.