Don’t flush the linens, please…
I’m sure the plumbers have more torrid tales of toilet trouble to tell than I do, but today marked a first for lil’ol me: A jack of all trades and master of none. (Well, okay, maybe a few, but you get the point.)
Yesterday evening I got a call from a long standing customer that the toilet could only be flushed once or twice a day. Any more than that and it would back up.
Hokay. The commode itself is fine, but this little mother-in-law unit is attached to one of those "guest houses with a view" that the wealthy visitors to our area like to rent out. Who knows what the last renters of the main house might have been doing! So the problem is either the drain or the septic tank. The latter is suspicious because nobody can even remember the last time it was pumped, but the first thing to do is snake the drain to make sure it’s clear.
Seventy-five feet down the drain I found enough cloth to fill a five pound coffee can half full. Dry, I’m sure it would have filled the coffee can to overflowing. What were these? Someone’s underwear? Linen napkins? Discarded handkerchiefs?
I have no idea. All I know is it took me a quarter of an hour to cut about ten feet of the stuff of the power snake with a utility knife!
The moral: Don’t flush the linens!
