So my toilet had a block and I reached in as far as I could and this came out. It’s like a circle of flexible and somewhat strong cottonlike material, that’s been saturated with poo. I am pretty certain it didn’t come from my bathroom, I don’t recognise what it is and I’m pretty sure nothing that large has ever gone down. Any ideas what this is and if it’s important?
A tampon?
A hair scrunchie?
I’m male and the only person who ever uses the toilet.
Edit, that was a reply when tampon was only listed option in preceding post.
I’m pretty sure it didn’t come from my bathroom. I’ve been here 14 years now and never flushed anything that big, and nobody else has ever used it in that time. I was just wondering if it may have been something with an actual purpose that I dislodged.
Single family home, townhouse, condo, what are we talking about here?
Possibly oakum? Used to caulk joints in iron pipe such as sewer lines before more modern ABS pipe was adopted.
Perhaps a cleaning rag that fell in unnoticed and got flushed.
Any plumber will tell you in no uncertain terms that “flushable wipes” aren’t. It might be one (or more) of those.
I admire your bravery, sir.
That was one of my first thoughts, that the object somehow traveled from adjacent pipes, e.g. a neighboring apartment.
Is it at all possible that it’s a wad of excess toilet paper compacted together?
Something from a previous tenant.
Has the toilet been a difficult flush?
I’m thinking disposable diaper.
It seems to be too strong to be toilet paper unless there’s a way it hardens and strengthens. I’ve never used “flushable” wipes.
The general nature of plumbing in a multi-family building is that there’s a solitary line serving your toilet that eventually joins the common manifold carrying everyone’s sewage away. The length of your personal line will be at least a couple of feet. In a multi-story building it’ll be 15 or 20 feet since it will join the common manifold not just below your floor, but somewhere below the floor of the apartment beneath yours. So 1-1/2 stories below you. And for anyone else’s “stuff” to get up to your toilet requires a large uphill movement. Stuff and water don’t tend to flow uphill.
If the OP reached into his toilet by hand, the farthest his hand or arm could have followed the curved flow path is a few inches, 1 foot absolute max. So nowhere near the merge. Even if he took the stool up off the floor and reached directly into the soil pipe, arms still aren’t long enough.
Now if he used a closet snake or power snake or some such, ran the end umpteen feet in, and then reeled out this interesting sewerfish, well that’s different. Tools like that can easily reach past the individual / common join.
Above and beyond the call of dooky.
Was there flooding in your area lately?
At first glance I thought it might be the gasket where the toilet joins the pipe. But I can’t think how that could be backed up into the toilet so far. Unless water came up.
They are also usually a waxy type of material. Have not seen ones with fibers in them.
Let’s not give the guy ideas.
I admit, I clicked on this thread in hopes that the thing had a face. 
Surely you’d be more impressed if it were just a perfect sphere to be rolled around…
I was hoping it would eat someone’s face.
When the leopards begin emerging from toilets late at night to rampage through the house eating faces … welll … the terrorists have surely won.
Well, leopards eating faces is better than leopards eating fec…uhh… Yeah.
The OP is very brave! On my phone, the item seems to have the texture of some kind of wipe, or maybe one of those ‘flushable’ toilet bowl scrubbers that were really popular years ago.