I flushed my toilet, then tried to replace the toilet paper roll on the plastic holder, when I managed to drop the holder into the bowl just as the flushing completed, taking the holder with it.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
The next time I flushed, it seemed to empty normally - but no water appeared to go into the bowl. I could hear water going into the toilet, but very slowly, as if the holder was blocking water from getting in. (I had to go to work, and didn’t want to risk the toilet overflowing for eight hours while I was away, so I turned off the water to the toilet, and have no idea how long it would have taken to fill.)
Most of the solutions I have heard about getting it back out involve removing the toilet from the floor and pushing it out from behind. I have also heard, “use a wet/dry Shop-Vac to pull it out.” Before I call a plumber (which I have a feeling I should do anyway), does anybody have any other suggestions?
Removing the toilet from the floor isn’t difficult. I’ve done it many times (the last time because a kid managed to flush a popsicle stick down it, another time because of a medicine bottle).
That being said, it is much easier as a two person job. Just buy a new wax ring at the hardware store so you can replace it if needed when you reseat the toilet. I bet you can find dozens of videos showing how to do it if you google.
I dropped my boyfriend’s toothbrush into the bowl as it was flushing (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). It got wedged down in there out of sight. We tried all manner of things to get it out and in the end wound up just replacing the toilet.
My first week at a prestigious Ivy-League college I dropped my room key down the toilet just as it was flushing. It didn’t appear to impact the plumbing at all, but I had to make an extremely humiliating request for new keys (“Give it a few days, they might turn up.” “No, I don’t think these are coming back anytime soon.”) It also became a recurring theme of conversations about how various individuals weren’t smart enough to be at this school (“Did you know that SpoilerVirgin flushed her keys down the toilet her first week?”)
I don’t have any plumbing advice, but wish you good luck with the recovery efforts.
Have you tried sticking your hand in there and feeling for it? That’s how I got out a bullet casing that fell in (don’t ask.) Sort of nasty but the water was as clean as it gets. If your hand is too big try to convince a woman or child.
Years ago I was using the bathroom at my wife’s office in the China Basin building (near PacBell Park in San Francisco) and dropped her enormous set of work keys in the toilet. Since it was a softball sized blob of keys, I decided to flush the toilet and grab them while there was no water in it.
Imagine my surprise when the toilet flushed with the sound and strength of a friggin’ jumbo jet taking off, and the keys disappeared. Hoping to avoid her wrath at having lost her giant set or work keys, I found a building security guard and explained what happened, then asked him if he knew where the keys probably were. His deadpan answer: “The Bay.”
My wife complained for weeks about losing one set of her car keys. Guess where they were.
Ditto on how easy removing the toilet is - except maybe if it is in a hard to get to spot. The wax rings are about the cheapest thing the hardware store sells when you compute dollar per cubic inch. IIRC there are two types, but it might pay to get both just to be sure.
I accidentally flushed the roll-holder when I was a kid. It’s still why I am careful to only replace the toilet paper with the lid down or while I’m sitting on the toilet.
Something doesn’t make sense. Something going down the toilet and catching might cause the bowl to overflow, but it wouldn’t keep the tank from filling (which is what it sounds like you’re describing). There’s no connection between the drain and the inlet (and it would be pretty gross if there were.)
I was going to say this as well (besides, I don’t have an interesting ‘flushed something down the toilet’ anecdote).
The flow of water from the tank to the bowl is completely separate from the flow from the bowl to the sewer. Unless you have some sort of high-tech toilet, there’s almost no way that flushing a ‘foreign object’ could prevent the toilet from refilling.
I killed my first iPod that way. Fell out of my pocket just as I hit the flush. After it was all over it was just lying at the bottom of the bowl, the click-wheel staring up at me like a baby HAL-9000 wondering why it was being punished.
I flushed a pair of glasses (dimestore readers, not prescription, thank god). They were tucked into the neck of my T-shirt and fell in the toilet when I went to flush.
Luckily or unluckily, it was at work, with industrial-strength water flow – sucker didn’t even hiccup.
Not having had the, er, “privilege” of being married, no, I didn’t.
Here’s the follow-up: I called a plumber (that I had previously found in the Yellow Pages when I needed my washing machine faucets replaced - yes, some of us still use the Yellow Pages), who removed the toilet, but couldn’t find anything, so he ran something down the toilet’s drain hole just in case it was stuck there. $200 worth of work later, he notices that it still takes a long time for the tank to fill, and suggests that I need a new toilet. (Rather than the obvious thought of, “Obviously his company is trying to sell me one,” I think that he’s right - this particular toilet has had flow problems for the past three years or so, even after two previous plumbers had replaced parts.) On top of that, after he leaves, I flush the toilet, and now it fills almost to the point of overflow, then somewhat slowly (not overly slowly, as if there’s a clog) drains until it gurgles rather than “flushes” when it gets to the bottom, then it takes about 10 minutes for the tank to fill, and even then, the bowl is only filled to about half of what it was when it worked properly.
I’ll start a separate thread for my new toilet search.
I once had a pedometer on my belt and went to take my pants off to go - pop! Off the pedometer came. Phew, it’s going towards the tile floor, we’re oka–it’s bouncing! It bounced into the toilet bowl! WHY! NO! It was a public toilet but I stuck my hand in there anyway because I really liked that pedometer. At least I hadn’t used the toilet yet. I rinsed it and it was none the worse for wear.
Then, one time, I was doing a number two and was fiddling with a spinner ring I wear on my thumb. Somehow I managed to pop that ring off and have it fly into the toilet bowl between my legs (yet again another public toilet!). I liked that ring a LOT…so I looked for a minute and decided I had to do it. I reached my hand in. It was soft. But I did it. I washed the ring about 5 times and I still wear it today.
And that folks is why I keep the lid down on my toilets unless I’m using them.
