Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Flushed Away!

There are times when I am so jealous of that mouse/rat?, and the toilet he gets flushed down. For one, the toilet is clean. For another, it actually flushes!

The boys's toilet was semi-plugged last night, so we were being careful. Then, I get up this morning to discover that mine is clogged too! AAAH! I only have 2 bathrooms, and now they are both out of order. We suffered through the slowness of the boys's to get everyone off to school. Then I located the drain snake and attempted plumbing.

How did it go?

Not so good. I figured there was a mega block in there, because that's what William has been trying to flush lately. What I didn't figure was the drain snake getting stuck on it, and not wanting to come back out! I pulled and twisted, but I didn't want it breaking and flying back to pop me in the face and poke my eye out of something, so I turned it over.

That involved getting my carpet cleaner and sucking all the water out of the bowl. Flush, do it again. Flush, do it again. Toilet tanks have a lot of water in them! I couldn't just plunge it down because the drain snake was in the way. I was on the phone with Steph at the time, I'm sure she is scared of Thomas and the toilet now. Don't worry, I haven't come across many kids as potty obsessed as mine are... I got the thing emptied and undid all the screws and laid it on it's side. I couldn't see the snake on the other side, so I gave up and called housing maintenance. We don't want them to charge us, so we only call if we cannot get the clog out. Not having a working toilet at all is an emergency so they came out relatively quickly.

By the way, when I told the guy on the phone that the snake was stuck, he laughed at me. When I popped into the living room and told Amanda, who was hanging out, she just about fell off the couch! I guess she found it hilarious! It kind of was. I mean, who does that?

I was right, there was a mega block in the boys's. There was a bar of soap in ours. I could have gotten that unclogged if the snake hadn't have been stuck in the other toilet! And I had him replace the lock on the boys's bathroom, since theirs was wearing out and getting stuck.

To top off our day, after grocery shopping, I went to put the groceries away. The light in the fridge was out and it didn't feel very cold in there. The thermostat we keep in there was up about 7 degrees from what we keep it at. Uh oh... I turned it all the way down to see if it would work, before I called it in. 1/2 hour later I checked and it was back down where it was supposed to be. Odd, but good! I am thinking the door just didn't seal all the way or something. So I didn't have to call that in today, thank heavens!

I'm sure you all were just dying to read about our toilets today, sorry. But you can't help but laugh at how many times we go through this. At least once a month, usually 2-3 times! I think the guy that comes just sees the name Willford on the fix-it notice and winces at this point...

3 comments:

Rachel Holloway said...

Ugh! How annoying!!! I am so sorry.

(knock on wood) We have not had any clogs in our toilet due to foreign objects. Am hoping this is a trend that sticks! :)

Stephanie said...

Yeah, sorry to brag on the phone about not having to deal with anything like this, and that the worst that we've been through was Zaylee dropping her toothbrush in the toilet that one time. Of course, she has been pretty interested in dipping things in the toilet water lately, which is pretty gross, and Thomas likes to splash his hand in it when he gets the chance, but other than that we haven't really had any problems along those lines.

Like Rachel said, Knock on Wood!!

I'm glad you were able to get it all taken care of, even though it did involve a call to maintenance.

Nicia said...

You live in base housing, and they charge for a maintenance call?!! Are you kidding me?!! I've never heard of that one. That was like the only thing I liked to brag about living on base. That's dumb! Sorry about the toilet craziness! You're a trooper for trying to deal with it though...glad it got fixed.