I have a friend who I’ve known for over 40 years, and he’s probably clogged more toilets (when i my vicinity) than all my other friends combined. His wife complained that it was a regular occurrence at home as well. When he comes over to my house, he knows to use my basement bathroom, in which I have a plunger ready for him to use. Alot of my friends have asked about his diet, volume, use of toilet paper (he vehemently denies using too much), etc., and he claims being “normal” on all fronts. So it remains a mystery.
Then I recently learned from my gf that her 11-year old daughter’s friend has the same issue. Now my friend is a large 250 pound adult, but this girl probably doesn’t weigh more than 100 pounds. And as with my friend, her mom assures everyone that it’s not the toilet paper.
I just clogged a toilet yesterday, my guess is a meat-heavy meal was the culprit. We don’t eat a lot of meat, but I did a couple of days ago, and I didn’t have a lot of fiber that day, either. Without getting too graphic, I think the mass was firm enough for two chunks to get lodged ‘shoulder to shoulder’ in the outlet, sort of like the Three Stooges trying to get through a doorway. Water would pass, but slowly. A couple of plunges cleared it.
Sometimes, very picky eaters end up living with unusually firm stools (depending on what foods they cannot tolerate). If their bowel movements are infrequent, they can regularly leave toilet-clogging amounts of stool in toilets – stool that takes hours to soften even steeped in toilet water. And that’s even before considering the amount of toilet paper used.
Anecdote 2:
Upon switching to a new, thicker brand of TP, my wife and son started regularly clogging up our toilets. We has used the thinnest major brand for years to avoid clogs. I never had problems with the new TP, but the others in the household failed to adjust their quantity of paper used. Eventually, we had to give up and go back to the thin stuff.
the only times I’ve ever clogged a toilet, that wasn’t due to a failure of the toilet itself, was due to using way too much toilet paper. The size of a BM itself doesn’t seem to be a factor in a toilet getting clogged in my experience. But if I use too much toilet paper that can clog it. But even then, after waiting about an hour the toilet paper has dissolved enough that it flushes again.
If you’re severely constipated, with Type 1 on the Bristol Stool Scale, a very large stool that doesn’t break up can easily clog a toilet. (Don’t ask me how I know.)
The most severe form, Type 1, is too small to cause that problem.
We used to keep a stick next to the toilet to break up my daughter’s stools because she regularly clogged the toilet from the time she was about 5. It was a combination of the length (we couldn’t beleive that it fit in such a small child) and the firmness.
Interesting about the dry stuff. My personal experience is that it happens more when it’s oily yet thick. The water won’t cut through without some extra help.
I’ve wondered if the OP’s friend has ever tried gushing a bucket of hot water down the drain between movements. It’s worked well for me; I think it seems to break it up well.
My wife has something called (I think?) a “tortuous colon” which has some unusual kinks or bends. She can go several days without a BM and then drop a toilet clogger when she finally goes. She has trouble with normal colonoscopy prep as well, often not getting completely cleaned out.
A few years ago we bought a Toto to replace the toilet in our master bath, and haven’t had a single clog since. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth every penny.
After vacationing in Italy ( Sicily ) I’ve become acquainted with bidets and from the get-go it felt barbaric to not use one. Installed one on my toilets and now my TP use is one square per day, though I use the soft thick stuff.
As a maintenance coordinator for a large property management company. I deal with clogged toilets a lot.
You say your friend claims he does not use too much toilet paper
“(he vehemently denies using too much)”, but what does that mean? How do we know if we can’t compare it to normal usage? If this happens all the time I’m going with too much TP. That’s about 50% of the blockages we deal with. The other is tree roots.
Anecdote: I was once in a museum stall and the guy next to me used an enormous amount of TP. To the point I almost said something.
On the other hand, there is a guy that uses our community club to go and he clogs it up frequently. It’s just his poop.
To quote Unca Cecil (from memory, long ago), “There are folders, and there are wadders, and then there are people you don’t want to know what they’re doing in there.”
ETA: found it. “There are wadders; there are folders; there are people who would probably go to jail if it was known what they did with their toilet paper.”
