Being ill
is not the best way of spending a Wednesday morning but seemed to of had some kind
of stomach bug, the idea of being to far from a toilet kept me in the house
most of the day, but Thursday I was much better, thanks for asking.
It’s not
like the last time a few months back, same scenario, bad stomach regular visits
to the bathroom, you know the type of thing, you spend ages in there to a point
your stomach actually begins to feel better you finally emerge and walk about ten
paces and quickly swing round and return to the small room once again, in my
case I knew every single mark in the painted finish on the door in front of me
as I spent so much time staring at it.
After about
six visits in the space of an hour, it was time to leave the bathroom yet
again, turned and flushed and to my horror the pan filled with water, right to
the top.
You imagine
the water coming up and over the edge but it didn’t it stopped just short of a
murky waterfall over the edge, I watched as the water slowly subsided back to a
normal level, hoping whatever caused it was gone, so flushed it again to check
agggh it filled up again, same level same result slowly subsiding.
I found
myself screaming at the toilet, I tend to do this, abuse inanimate objects, it usually
makes me feel better, but this time I meant it” Why now of all the times to
block you stupid toilet why now” You could probably add a few choice expletives
to make what I said more accurate but you get the gist.
The things
that go through your mind at that time beggers belief, I knew I didn’t have
long before I required it’s services once again and now it’s blocked and the
only one in the house, I quickly went outside to find the access cover and get
my drain rods from the shed, but even after being here three years I didn’t
know where the cover was, I searched and searched, nothing……
The pipe
was obvious and old cast iron but there didn’t seem to be anywhere it went to
other than into the concrete, now what?
I went back
inside and hoped I could flush it without it filling up again, nope it was
still blocked. At this point half an hour had past and was eyeing up a bucket
in the yard just in case for a back up plan.
The
bathroom is on the ground floor but the pipe has a vent stack pipe outside with
a bend in it as it rises above the roof line, in desperation I went and got a
lump hammer from the shed and hit the cast iron pipe right on top of the bend
and smashed a hole, with my torch I could see right down the pipe, well
actually I couldn’t because it was blocked, with my trusty drain rods and
wearing lovely red rubber gloves I started rodding down the hole in the pipe,
with more pushing and twisting I was getting hotter, the buckets in the yard
were looking more likely, then all of a sudden the rods moved down about six
inches.
After a bit
more poking and prodding I went and
tried to flush again, this time the water went away as it should, the sense of
relief was more than you would believe.
The pipe
has since been wrapped in Gaffer tape just in case I need to do it again, I
never did find an access cover and don’t think there is one.
The moral
of this story is don’t take your toilet for granted, you may never know when
you will need to rely on it.
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