We have lived here since last January. 10 months. It’s a lovely apartment and we’ve had no major problems with it, EXCEPT…
This is the SEVENTH TIME in the past 10 months that our toilet has become clogged up and overflowed. We have done EVERYTHING - we use less toilet paper, we flush two or three times per one use (I know, TMI, but it’s what we do), and we’ve even switched BRANDS of toilet paper several times. Nothing seems to work. Short of never taking a shit, we don’t know what else to do.
Yet the damn thing still overflows. The last time my husband called, he asked them to do something other than fix the clog - he asked them to have the toilet looked at to figure out WHY it keeps overflowing. The girl on the phone didn’t seem too concerned, so they sent a maintenance guy out to snake it and that’s it.
Well, I’ve had it. I’m being nice and not calling on THANKSGIVING NIGHT so the maintenance guys can enjoy their holidays. We’ve been at the in-laws all day, so we can survive 12 hours with a stopped-up toilet. However, I will call first thing in the morning when I get up and someone is getting themselves ripped a new asshole. We’ve spent tons of money on laundry to wash the towels that have gotten nasty from soaking up the water (and my mom wonders why we haven’t put the new towels we received as wedding gifts out yet…gee, I wonder why?).
I’ve just about had it. I swear, if they don’t knock some money off the rent for this shit, I will let them have it. We’re buying a house anyway, so we’ll be out of here in two months, but I am sick of this.
If it weren’t for sounding like you live in a large building with a maintenance staff, I’d swear you lived in my building under the barely-there care of one guy.
Only difference is for us, it’s the kitchen sink that overflows. Apparently the upstairs neighbor’s kitchen sink and ours connect to the drain stack at the same point via a “Y” connector. They dump a ton of potato peels or spinach leaves down the sink, and next thing you know, the Y is blocked and their sink drainage winds up in our sink. Yech. It’s such a chronic problem that there’s a home-made access panel screwed to the wall in the bedroom behind the kitchen for easy access to that fitting.
We live in a large complex with many, many different buildings. I have to admit, they respond quickly - I called around 10 this morning and they were here by 11:30. The guys also told me that I should have called last night - when I said we didn’t want to bother him on Thanksgiving, he laughed and told me not to worry about it.
They really are nice - it’s the office people who don’t seem to take complaints seriously. The guys today said they’d come back out on Monday to take a longer look at the toilet and see what’s keeping it stopped up.
Ummm…potato peels? Yum. I bet that smells good coming back up your system, huh?
We had the same problem when we first moved into our apartment. It seems that SO’s shit is some sticky stuff and used to regularly block the toilet (luckily never enough to overflow…thank Og!). But after calling the landlady for the 20th time and them taking at least a day or two to send the plumber to come and snake it out, I went out and bought my own snake. It was pretty cheap, about $10 and works like a charm. It’s a bit clumsy to use at first, but you soon get the hang of it and it’s so much easier than a plunger.
For some reason, our toilet hasn’t backed up in a few months but about 6 months ago it did and I snaked it and found…
a used tampon that wasn’t mine (I never flush mine)
That’s actually pretty common. My former landlords had to deal with that once at a night ladies house. He said that calciums depoists and stuff make the inside surface kind of rough and jaggedy (kinda like a coral cave or something). Unlike poop and wet paper, the cotton texture can get snagged easier.
When my for landlord lifted the Nice Lady’s toilet off the big pipe it sits on, he saw a tampon dangling by the string that had caught on something in the pipe. As soon as he caught aglimpse of hit, he set the toilet down quickly so she wouldn’t see it and die of emabarassment on the spot. He smiled and said, “Could you get me some… uh, paper towels…” just to get her out of the room then he quickly cleared it out. He said it wasn’t actually gross, because it had been stuck there so long, repreated flushings had rinsed it white.
Elza – Christmas before last, Littlecat managed to bounce a toy into the toilet. If you’ve seen any Fatcat posts, you may be aware that Fatcat flushes the toilet. They clogged my toilet Christmas Eve, no place was open to even get a plunger!
This is why the toilet lid must always be DOWN at my house. last week I forgot and Littlecat had put all my hair elastics in the toilet bowl. Again.
Actually your landlord is mistaken, Eats_Crayons. If the inside of the trap just above the floor flange is rough, it is because tht portion of the trapway wasn’t glazed. That is one subtle difference between the toilets sold at big box stores and the ones I buy from a plumbing supply house. I pay a good bit more, and that is one reason why. A fully glazed trapway flushes better.
Ah, it’s actually more likely that I was misremembering. My mistake. He knows his stuff and probably told me the correct info. Whereas I mostly remember a grotty old pipe (that he was showing me and wasn’t the one in the story) and a horrific story of a snagged tampon. Eeeeewy-ewwy-ew!
In any case he said it was common and that’s why he would kill us if we flushed tampons down the toilets in his house. (He was exaggerating. Of course, he wouldn’t kill us. Maim us maybe, but not kill us.)
