Finding strange little metal balls under your kitchen sink is usually less mysterious than it looks. In most cases, those beads didn’t come from your pipes at all—they came from the faucet setup above, and the fix is simple once you know where to look.

The most common source is the counterweight on a pull-down or pull-out faucet hose. Many faucets use a clipped-on weight under the sink so the spray head retracts smoothly after you pull it out. Some of those weights are filled with tiny metal shot, and if the weight’s casing cracks, the beads spill into the cabinet.

To confirm it, open the cabinet and follow the flexible hose that runs from the faucet down under the sink. Look for a cylinder-shaped or clip-on weight attached to that hose. If it’s cracked, split, or feels unusually light or empty, you’ve found the culprit—and you may also notice the sprayer no longer “snaps back” like it used to.

Clean up the beads, then replace the weight (a universal replacement usually works, or you can get the exact part for your faucet brand). If you don’t have a pull-out/pull-down faucet, then it’s worth checking other appliances under the sink area, but the faucet counterweight is the first and most likely explanation.