I live in an apartment building that was constructed around 1950 and the tub is completely stopped up (near 100% clog), leaving me showering ankle-deep in standing water.

After trying to plunge the drain and using Zip-It to no avail, I called in our maintenance person to snake the drain.

I was surprised, however, when he (the apartment maintenance guy) removed the drum trap adjacent to the tub and attempted to snake the drain pipe from there. Everything I read indicated the tub should be snaked through the overflow portal of the tub. However, he never touched this part of the tub.

Needless to say, he was entirely unsuccessful in clearing the clog. He didn't get very far with the snake and it hit against something that the snake couldn't penetrate (this was a drill-powered auger cable snake).

Does this approach sound correct for resolving a stopped-up tub? If not, what was he hitting up against with the snake? I am wondering if I should simply try to fix this myself.

Was there standing water in the drum trap up to the top? You normally can't plunge a tub unless you can seal the vent in the handle handle which allows air into the trap when you drain the tub. This vent would just let all of your plunging pressure just vent back into the handle and not down the drain.

Removing the cleanout and snaking from the drum trap is perfectly correct. Here, the maintenance person wants to snake from the drum trap TO the tub and from the drum trap OUT to the larger pipes.

Finally, if you tried plunging the drain know that you needed to have standing water in the tub (an inch or so) AND you needed to remove the overflow plate (remove trip lever mechanism if present) and stick a wetted rag into the overflow pipe before plunging.

Combined, these techniques should get the tub draining!

Mark