# Man sues for damages from exploding toilet **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 4, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870 "2005-06-04T13:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/1 "2005-06-04T13:01:12Z")
[MSN story](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8085008/?GT1=6657) Insert “smoking is hazardeous to your health” joke here. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/2 "2005-06-04T13:25:13Z")
If he wins he’ll be flushed with victory, but I suspect it’s just a flash in the pan. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/3 "2005-06-04T14:47:51Z")
See? Smoking pot _IS_ bad for you! ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/4 "2005-06-04T14:52:50Z")
That’s what you get when you try to light your farts. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/5 "2005-06-04T15:33:20Z")
Gah. I hate having to move this thread. It has such rich potential for genuniely vile humor. Ah well. Duty is stern. Off to MPSIMS. Veb ---
**Author:** ![Maxxxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f14d63/32.png) [@Maxxxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maxxxie)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/6 "2005-06-04T21:35:24Z")
It’s a shame, really, it had such potential. But I just don’t believe it anymore! It’s just too much like these stories: [http://www.snopes.com/embarrass/accident/toilet.asp](http://www.snopes.com/embarrass/accident/toilet.asp) :smack: Max. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/7 "2005-06-06T05:00:44Z")
> [@TVeblen](#): > > Off to MPSIMS. Thus a “can” thread gets… canned. Or flushed, if you will. Or dumped into this forum. I know that reporters work under intense pressure to produce hot copy promising an explosive impact and set off in flashy style, but the AP story was a piss-poor writeup IMHO, de-emphasizing the actual, desensationalized causes of the mishap to make it sound, at first glance, as if smoking in a porto-potty can cause it to blow up (“a mighty wind,” anyone?). You have to get to paragraph 3 to hear of a natural-gas pipe angle, and to paragraph 5 to learn of how such an accident could’ve happened (construction equipment rupturing the pipe; the rupture going undiscovered; gas collecting under the porto-john). A curious human-interest story, but ultimately… a sound and fury, signifying nothing. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/8 "2005-06-06T05:07:40Z")
[Didn’t Mythbusters debunk this?](http://www.mythbustersfanclub.com/html/exploding_toilet.html) Ok, they didn’t use methane gas, but other flammables like hairspray & butane only caused a tiny “poof”. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-sues-for-damages-from-exploding-toilet/306870/9 "2005-06-06T12:10:53Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > [Didn’t Mythbusters debunk this?](http://www.mythbustersfanclub.com/html/exploding_toilet.html) Ok, they didn’t use methane gas, but other flammables like hairspray & butane only caused a tiny “poof”. Yeah they did. But it was for a home toilet, not a port-a-let, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t runa ruptured methane line underneath it.