Stan in Oly, WA
Well-known Member
The toilet in my main bathroom plugs up to the point of near overflow following a flush about once a month, or three times in two months. I can always get it flowing nearly normally again using one of those plungers that looks like an upside down cartoon bee hive. I know that to fix it I'm going to have to remove the toilet and run at least 50' of drain auger down it. What I can't do is visualize the problem.
It started about two years ago immediately after some out of town friends visited and their 14 year old son spent a long time in the bathroom. I'm speculating, but here's what I think happened. The boy used the toilet before noticing that there was no toilet paper. Being too shy to call for assistance, he improvised. My guess is that he used a wash cloth, hand towel, or maybe his underpants. Then, being terribly embarrassed by anything having to do with bodily functions, as most young teenagers are, he hid the evidence by flushing it down the toilet. The problem first presented itself the first time one of us flushed the toilet after our friends had left. I used the plunger to clear the problem, except that it didn't actually clear it---it just made it enough better that the toilet would flush. It wasn't until the following morning that I realized that I had missed what was probably my one opportunity to actually solve the problem by using a toilet auger rather than a plunger. I used it then, but I suspect that the force of the plunger had moved the obstruction out of reach of the 6' auger.
Now, we start getting warnings a few days in advance that there's going to be a problem. The water level rises noticeably high in the bowl after most flushes. If I'm ambitious I grab the plunger and I get to use it with nice clear water. If I'm lazy, which is getting to be more normal, I don't do anything until there's a blockage, and then the procedure is really unpleasant.
What I haven't been able to come up with is an explanation for why this happens occasionally instead of all the time.
Stan
It started about two years ago immediately after some out of town friends visited and their 14 year old son spent a long time in the bathroom. I'm speculating, but here's what I think happened. The boy used the toilet before noticing that there was no toilet paper. Being too shy to call for assistance, he improvised. My guess is that he used a wash cloth, hand towel, or maybe his underpants. Then, being terribly embarrassed by anything having to do with bodily functions, as most young teenagers are, he hid the evidence by flushing it down the toilet. The problem first presented itself the first time one of us flushed the toilet after our friends had left. I used the plunger to clear the problem, except that it didn't actually clear it---it just made it enough better that the toilet would flush. It wasn't until the following morning that I realized that I had missed what was probably my one opportunity to actually solve the problem by using a toilet auger rather than a plunger. I used it then, but I suspect that the force of the plunger had moved the obstruction out of reach of the 6' auger.
Now, we start getting warnings a few days in advance that there's going to be a problem. The water level rises noticeably high in the bowl after most flushes. If I'm ambitious I grab the plunger and I get to use it with nice clear water. If I'm lazy, which is getting to be more normal, I don't do anything until there's a blockage, and then the procedure is really unpleasant.
What I haven't been able to come up with is an explanation for why this happens occasionally instead of all the time.
Stan