in which we attempt to clear drains

Attempts:

1. N's 25' auger - eventually worked its way into the drain, clearing some blockages. Intermittently added boiling water to see if it could dissolve some of the built up soap goo. Auger reached its limit with only slight improvement in flow. Not enough to take outflow from washing machine.
2. Power auger rented from Home Depot - would not even go around the bend, was not flexible enough.
3. 50' auger (bought from Home Depot) - eventually went 15' into the drain. Still no noticeable improvement.
4. Haul washing machine into kitchen, put pipe into sink, turn on long enough for it to drain, watch with concern as the sink fills up to the two thirds point before draining.
5. Hand three weeks worth of laundry to A, who volunteered to use their machine to wash it to spare me the three hours in the laundrette.
6. Purchase bacterial drain gunk eater to see if that'll work (without filling the house with noxious fumes from chemical drain clearer). Wait until morning to see if it's had any effect.
   
7. If that didn't help, hire plumber when we can afford it, (some time in August at the current expense rate), and hope that the (probably cast iron) pipe (which runs under the concrete slab foundation and is therefor inaccessible without cutting through said concrete) is not broken or corroded through.
   

Actual achievements for the day:

1. Sorted through three rubbish bins in the garage to make one and half bins of actual trash, and a pile of tools and other miscellaneous things that are actually usable, and a pile of kindling. Left tools and other things from the garage by curbside for people to take. (Half of the pile is already gone).
2. Filled four 30 gallon bin liners with rubbish from the attic. Placed a few of the not-trash items by the curb with the rest of the pile. Things found in this process: the other boot (the first one was found several weeks ago), an inflatable pink Easter egg, enough Christmas lights to go around the entire house (if any of them actually worked), broken tree decorations, the tree, a box of fake pumpkins, a truck bed liner...
3. S scraped paint of part of the dining room wall, and cleaned the back room somewhat.
4. Mowed the rear meadow. (It's not a lawn, or a garden, it's a patch of greenery, some of it actually grass (there's at least five different varieties on this property) with up to a foot of height variance, and not, of course, a nice slope there.
   

There's now actually a path from the ladder to the attic window that can be traversed without risking life and limb. This enables the window to actually be closed (the POs left it open) in the event of, say, rain, thus preventing further water ingress.