etiquette advice: drunk person breaks toilet

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ok, I need the advice of the brilliant people on this board so I can figure out how to approach this problem.

I had a little get together the other night – three close friends over having a few drinks and playing Guitar Hero. Another close friend drops by and is rip-roaring, fire-breathing drunk. With a friend of hers, who I have never met before, and who is apparently even drunker. He could barely stand. Anyway, awkwardness ensues, and the long and short of it is that this drunken dude locks himself in my bathroom for about half an hour. I kept checking on him, but he insisted he was fine, and though I heard some strange rattling noises, I did not hear puking and he answered me each time I called for him, so I decided that maybe he needed some alone time to, uh, poop or something.

So then he leaves the bathroom. I go in, and see not puke but rather all of my makeup products scattered around the floor of the bathroom. Like, everywhere. Like he had had himself a little makeover. He also smelled like my body lotions, but that is beside the point. I think, hey, everything is fine! I have body lotion to spare! I am pathetically grateful that there is not puke everywhere, and – after he has passed out a couple of times in my apartment – I help him into a cab and he goes home, safe and sound, and we even check up on him to make sure he’s fine. He is.

Next day, the toilet doesn’t flush. It’s doing that thing when you know that human waste is not involved: slow drain, easy to clog, nothing gross coming out of it, but basically you have to plunge it every time you need to do anything in there. And some of my makeup? Is missing.

Estimated cost of repair is way more than I can afford, and since my partner and I work all week, it would also take up at least one day out of our upcoming “vacation” weekend. Which we were possibly going to use to get away from stress.

Here is my question, or rather my series of questions:

  1. Do I expect him to pay for the cost of the repair? This would get kinda pricey, since this sort of thing, based on my past experience with people dropping pens and such into the toilet, requires that the toilet be removed entirely. And yes, we have tried the snake.

  2. If he refuses to pay and denies all responsibility, do I expect the friend who brought him over to pay?

  3. Can I kill him?

Any advice appreciated.

2

If someone flushes your makeup and destroys your toilet, then yes, they should pay.

3

Make him come over and take the toliet apart and fix it. It’s not that hard. Shut off the water and flush it one last time. Remove the screws on the floor and lift it out and then have HIM reach in a remove what is clogging it. Reverse the procedure and it’s back.

Then kill him.

4

Yup. And you lean on your “friend” who brought him along to make sure he owns up.

I don’t care just how drunk he got, he was rummaging through your stuff, which is a strict no-no. It’s possible that he’s the kind of guy that is quite different drunk and he’ll man up to deal with your toilet. If he’s not, you lean on friend. If friend will not help with drunk cut 'em both out. If they’re willing to put you behind to the tune of plumbing repair, which can be quite expensive, fuck 'em.

OTOH, because I can almost gay-run-tee that he’ll ask for some proof that it was him. Were you the last person in the loo before him? Do you know the conditions before he got in there? IOW, will he be able to weasel out of it? Don’t give him the chance. Be prepared for weaseling and make him pay.

Good luck.

5

  1. Do I expect him to pay for the cost of the repair? Yes, you expect him to pay.

  2. If he refuses to pay and denies all responsibility, do I expect the friend who brought him over to pay? Yes, the friend that brought over the stinking-drunk stranger should pay if he doesn’t.

  3. Can I kill him? This is always an option. Perhaps better, fit him with a snorkel and give him an atomic-grade swirly.

6

I was indeed the last person in the loo before him. Actually, I went in the bathroom in advance and set out some mouthwash and a cup so if he needed to puke he would have a little bit of goodness afterwards. Everything in there was dandy, because I am anal (ha!) and made sure that everything was working perfectly and was spic and span. I also had an inkling he might puke, so I checked to make sure everything was dandy with the porcelain throne. Then he went in and… well, the rest is in the OP.

However, I do fear he will weasel out of it, and claim that everyone was drinking therefore it could have been anyone. But only he spent all that time in there, and we were all “drinking” in the sense that three of us were nursing now-warm beers and ROCKING to Guitar Hero, and the two drunkards were staggering around acting like, well, drunkards.

Also, the first person to discover the toilet problem was one of the other friends, who had been drinking lightly, who immediately came out of the bathroom looking shamefaced and asked if maybe his one square of toilet paper he had tossed in had done the deed. So I don’t really think he was the one to start the initial, uh, plug. Clog. Thing.

YES! Now I have permission from a neutral third party.

7

Ugh. He should at least pay for part, if not all, of it. Being drunk is no excuse to flush someone else’s makeup down the toliet.

8

Get new friends. I wouldn’t let either of these clowns back into my home. Fix the toilet yourself. Since the toilet isn’t broke it’s only 4 nuts to remove and a wax seal to replace. Find a friend, a real friend, who can help. It’s easier than changing the oil on your car.

And when you fish out the makeup case that’s probably stuck I would hire someone to shove it up your friends ass (next time he’s drunk). Make sure to lube him up first with your expensive lotion.

9

Offer him the opportunity to pay for repairs. Be sure to mention to him that small claims court is an option. Whether or not you are willing to go to the trouble of actually filing, the prospect of legal proceedings tends to make many people quite reasonable.

ETA: Barring that, it should be a reasonably easy repair to do yourselves, and certainly not the worst thing you will ever have to do, especially if you’re planning on children of your own in the future.

New wax ring from Home Depot. A wrench to unbolt from the floor. A large bucket to dump the remainder of the water in after you remove the bowl from the floor. An hour, maybe two, of time and you’re done.

10

I would drop this friend and not expect any kind of payment. If he showed up contrite and when informed of the damage, offered to pay, I would consider renewing the friendship, but he clearly has a drinking problem and needs to do something about it.

11

He’s not even her friend! He’s a FOAF!

Granted, I had one of those once puke on my wall. But he owned up to it and did his best to clean it and tried to pay to have it repainted. I didn’t let him because you totally can’t tell now unless I told you “See where Stephen puked on the wall? Yeah.”

12

You break something that belongs to someone else, you pay for it. In rare cases with extremely generous individuals and innocent accidents involving sober people who had no control whatsoever over the unfortunate outcome the owner of the broken item may, in their extreme generosity, waive payment. In this case, mild groveling followed by being extra nice to them for a while should follow from the person who broke the item.

He got drunk. I think that by making the choice to get drunk, you accept responsibility for all the stupid shit you do when you get drunk. It’s not a get out of broken toilets free card. He made an ass of himself in your home. He broke something in your home. He should pay for it.

Step one: If he doesn’t offer to pay for it, don’t ask, tell him: “I think my toilet is broken because you flushed some of my make-up down it. If you broke it, I expect you to pay for it. The estimate for the bill is $XX.xx.”

Step two: Then refuse to fight about it. Just lay down your expectations.

If he refuses, he’s a bum who should never ever ever live this down, and you have my blessing to attempt persuasion by swirly. If that doesn’t work, you could go break his toilet and kill him with the pieces. (Then start over from step one with the friend who brought him over.)

13

Didn’t realize he was the FOAF. None of the people involved would be welcome again unless there was some pretty hard core groveling.

14

Head to your nearest hardware store and buy a toilet auger. Ten bucks to buy, five minutes to use(including learning how) and ten minutes to clean up(if you’re really squeamish drop it in a bag and take it to the car wash and hose it down for 25 cents).

They’re inexpensive(about ten times cheaper than a single visit from a plumber) and they’re reusable if something else happens in the future. Given the description of events I very seriously doubt the wax seal or anything internal was damaged. This is almost certainly something you can fix yourself, and pretty easily.

Your friends, and their friends, however, no help there.

Enjoy,
Steven

15

I’d just like to say that his behavior was especially egregious because you are clearly an exceptionally gracious host(ess)*. You checked your toilet to make sure it was clean enough for an obnoxious drunk to puke in? AND you set out mouthwash for him? Amazing.
*I guessing you’re female due to the makeup, but you could be a metrosexual and I don’t want to assume…

16

Spray him down with lysol. It’s most effective at killing bathroom scum.

17

Not only the toilet, he should pay to replace the make-up.

What a jackass!

18

Etiquette wise - this is the answer. There is no mannerly way to present your guest (which when you let him into your home he became) with a bill for the toilet. Of course, he should offer to pay and you should let him, but you can’t “make” him do so in the polite world. Nor are you likely to be effective at making him pay in any impolite world, unless he is a more considerate person sober than drunk or you sue.

19

Go over to his house and discretely flush an entire bag of “Quik-crete” down his toilet and maybe also hide a dead fish in his linen closet.

20

I’ve been following this thread. I don’t know if this will be any help but here is how I think I would handle this situation based on my reaction to the OP.

You aren’t going to have any pull unless you find the makeup clogging the toilet. Without it’s going to be a lifetime of you guys talking shit about each other calling the other one a crazy bitch. You MUST get into that toilet and retrieve the makeup.

Put the makeup in a ziplock bag and attach it to his front door or car window with a note saying something along the lines of “Look Princess, this isn’t Mardi Gras. You can’t just get drunk and put things where they don’t belong. You can either write me a check or expect to find someone systematically flushing every one of your possessions down a toilet”

Now this last part takes a certain lobstermobster style dedication to madness and outrage and immaturity. I know you don’t know this person enough to get into their house but most people work in pretty public places. A desk somewhere will be riddled with flushable items. Getting into the apartment isn’t impossible either. At some point he’ll have people over and you can worm your way in through mutual friend.

However you handle it, definitely retrieve the makeup. You’ll get no where without evidence.