Students, faculty and staff arrived at Curtiss Hall Monday morning to the smell of a sewer drain.

A sewer drain clogged in the sub-basement of Curtiss Hall yesterday near a ventilation shaft, sending the pungent odor wafting through the building.

Julie Eppert, a secretary for ISU Extension, arrived at work around 7:30 a.m. and noticed the foul smell. She said the odor lasted for 45 minutes to an hour. During the afternoon she and others began breathing in the smell of bleach and other deodorants.

“When I walked in after lunch it smelled like Clorox,” she said.

The building’s supervisor, Richard Carter, head of the agriculture education department, said sewer clogs are not unusual, but in this instance it happened to be near a ventilation system.

Mike Caddell, director of mechanical services for Facilities Planning and Management, agreed.

“That’s not uncommon when that kind of thing happens,” he said.

Workers from his office were sent to Curtiss to unclog the drain with high pressure jet washers.

He said when most sewer clogs occur in university buildings the smell is there but is usually not noticeable.

The sewer clog in Curtiss Hall occurred in a part of the building nearby construction that is currently being done on the air ventilation system in the basement.

Vern Faber, the manager for the construction occurring at Curtiss Hall, said the sewer line was clogged between a couple of manholes starting in the west part of campus. He speculated that the cause of the clog was most likely due to tree roots.