• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez freaked out after discovering the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink of her new Washington, DC apartment.
• “There is a monster living in my sink,” the Bronx, New York native said in an Instagram story. “It scared the daylights out of me.”
• Ocasio-Cortez explained she had never encountered a garbage disposal before, perhaps because the devices are rare in her home city, where they were banned in residences before 1997.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

---

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is still adjusting to life in Washington, DC.

On Monday, she informed her 3.3 million followers on Instagram that she didn’t know why flipping a switch near the kitchen sink in her “bougie” new apartment provoked a loud crunching sound to come out of the drain.

“There is a monster living in my sink,” she said in an Instagram story, flipping the switch. “It made that noise and it scared the daylights out of me.”

After her followers presumably informed the congresswoman that the noise-making device was a garbage disposal, Ocasio-Cortez explained that she’s never seen one before.

“I am told this is a garbage disposal,” the Bronx, New York native went on. “I’ve never seen a garbage disposal, I’ve never had one in any place I’ve ever lived. It is terrifying – I don’t know what to use it for or what its purpose is. Is this environmentally sound?”

Read more:
The filmmaker who followed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign for 18 months says the freshman lawmaker was ‘looking forward to wearing regular clothes again’ before her stunning political upset

“They were illegal in NYC for a long time and never really became a thing after the ban was lifted ????,” the freshman Democratic lawmaker tweeted Tuesday night. “Other home things many NYers don’t have in their apartments: washer/dryer, dishwasher, central air.”

New York City banned garbage disposals in residential kitchens until 1997, and they remain rare in the city.

“Is this what social mobility is?” the congresswoman asked.

She then joked, “All you people telling me to reach in and grab whatever’s there are just Republicans trying to test my health insurance I’m onto you.”

After determining there might be a piece of glass in her disposal, she decided to either call her landlord or “never turn this switch on again.”

On Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez followed-up on her garbage disposal saga, saying on Instagram that she unplugged the disposal and didn’t find anything inside.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.