A residential plumbing customer called me this week because the toilet wasn’t draining.
The woman sounded frantic on the phone.
I had an appointment open that afternoon and I put the woman in the time slot. I finished up with a different plumbing repair early, so I ended up going to the customer’s place an hour ahead of schedule. The woman seemed extremely happy that I got there early. One of the first things that I did was turn off the water to the house. It took a couple of minutes to find the main water line. It was not located in the spot where most shut off valves are located. After I shut off the water, I grabbed a drain snake from the work truck. I snaked the drain a couple of times before the water started to move. It was still draining very slowly, so I decided to use a camera to look at the blockage from inside of the pipes. The camera showed several different problems in the pipe. The toilet was stopped up with all kinds of stuff. I located the blockage and that made it easier for me to remove all of the items. Once I started pulling things out of the toilet, I found a small army guy, a sock, a toothbrush, and three feminine napkin pads. The customer looked embarrassed when I started removing items from the toilet drain, but I assured her that this type of thing happens all of the time. I’ve seen much worse blockages in residential homes on several different occasions.