What you're probably noticing
Water is coming up where it shouldn't. Maybe the tub gurgles when the washing machine drains, or the toilet in the hall bathroom bubbles when someone flushes the one in the master. Maybe there's a damp patch by the floor drain in the basement that wasn't there last week. Before you call anyone or start pouring chemicals down a drain, there's one thing worth doing first: figure out how many fixtures are actually affected, and which ones.
This matters more than most homeowners realize. A single slow drain in one bathroom is a different problem than three fixtures backing up at once across the house. One tells you where to look. The other tells you the blockage is probably in the main line, not in any one fixture, and that changes everything about what happens next.
Why this matters more in Nixa
A lot of homes around Nixa were built from the 1990s through the 2000s during the town's growth years, with a good number of older farmhouses and properties scattered in from before that on larger lots. That mix matters because older cast iron or clay pipe sewer laterals, especially on properties that used to be more rural, are more prone to root intrusion and settling than the PVC lines common in newer subdivisions.
The clay soil common through this part of southwest Missouri doesn't help. It expands when wet and contracts hard when dry, and Nixa gets both extremes: soggy springs with heavy rain, followed by stretches of dry summer heat that crack the ground. That cycle shifts and stresses buried pipe over the years, especially where a line crosses a yard with mature trees. Roots chase moisture from sewer lines in dry spells, and that's a classic cause of a main line backup here, not something you'd worry about the same way in a place with sandier soil or no real dry season.
More on this from Count The Fixtures Before You Do Anything Else.
How to count fixtures the right way
Walk the house. Run water or flush at each toilet, tub, shower, and sink, one at a time, and watch the others. Does flushing the toilet make the tub gurgle? Does running the kitchen sink back up the floor drain in the laundry room or basement? Write down exactly what you see and in what order, because that sequence is useful information if you end up needing a professional.
Pay attention to the lowest fixtures in the house. Basement floor drains, laundry standpipes, and basement bathrooms are usually the first to show trouble because they sit closest to the main line's path out to the street or septic tank. If backup is only showing up low in the house, that's a strong sign the problem is downstream of everything, not in any single fixture's own trap or branch line.
What a homeowner can reasonably do
If only one fixture is slow, a plunger or a hand auger for that specific drain is a fair thing to try yourself. Slow kitchen sinks are often grease or food buildup in the trap, and a bathroom sink or tub is usually hair and soap scum. Both are reasonable DIY jobs.
If you've got a septic system, check the tank's last pump-out date before anything else. A lot of backups in homes on septic around the Nixa area trace back to a tank that simply hasn't been serviced in years, not to a line problem at all. That's worth ruling out before you assume the worst.
When it stops being a homeowner job
If multiple fixtures back up together, especially the lowest ones in the house, that points to the main line, and a hand auger or store-bought drain cleaner isn't going to reach far enough or do much against roots or a bellied pipe. This is where it's worth bringing in someone with a sewer camera and a machine that can actually clear or diagnose a line forty, sixty, eighty feet out.
Sewage backing up through a floor drain or showing up in a basement is also a point to stop troubleshooting and get help, both because of the mess and because standing wastewater is a real health hazard. And if backups seem to track with heavy rain, that suggests a cracked line letting groundwater in, or a connection issue with storm drainage, which isn't something to chase down with a plunger. At that point, counting the fixtures has already done its job: it told you this isn't a one-drain problem, and it's time to call someone who can see what's actually happening underground.