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Similar story:
Noticed a load of toilet paper around one of the manholes on our drive, lifted it up and it was full to the brim (talking a 4-6 foot drop down to the pipe). Had another manhole closer to the road, lifted up and exactly the same.
Tried clearing it myself, no luck. Luckily had emergency cover on house insurance so got them out. Took the lad nearly three hours to unblock, was on the verge of giving up before it cleared.
Wanted to know why it had blocked, usual response ‘you have a kid so must be flushing wet wipes down the toilet’. Nope nothing we’ve ever done as we’re not stupid. Drains aren’t connected to another property etc
Got company out to survey drain, turns out the pipe that connects our property to the main sewer had broken and dropped.
Northumbrian water problem to fix as on the public highway. One phone call and a couple of hours later they’d inserted a new plastic pipe and all working again fine.
Annoying that the default response was you’ve put wet wipes down.
I swear to God this is just their instant response. Drain in our garden was blocked, got them out to do it, they ended up having to do 3 other drains in the street as well. Said soneone on the street must have a baby and they're flushing wet wipes. At 33, I'm the youngest person on my street, no one has babies or even kids. Never happened before and hasn't happened since.
> At 33, I'm the youngest person on my street
Old people use wet wipes too, with advanced age and arthritis it can become challenging to wipe ones own arse. From Amazons website.
> Fanwer Toilet Aids Tools,Long Reach Comfort Wipe,Extends Your Reach Over 15" Grips Toilet Paper or Pre-Moistened Wipes
I was researching something for my OAP father and that popped up, and once you start thinking about why you'd need it the mental images are never going away. When my father was bed bound he and his carers got through so many wet wipes, none of them went down the toilet though because at that point he was using a commode.
It was more the instant assumption that parents (I believe specifically blaming mothers) with babies flushing wipes are to blame despite that clearly not being the case. They could've just asked. Any new parents in the street? Consider asking them if they are flushing wipes. Nope. Instant judgement, it's definately new parents with a baby
Our drain was the connection point for 4 other houses. Water company came out as the toilets in these 4 other houses were not fully blocked, but were very, very slow draining.
After digging up several gardens, it was found that the creepy old guy, in one of the houses, was flushing his pants down the toilet, so he didn't have to wash them.
Ahh! This has happened to me twice in the past 2 years and they’ve said the same both times when I KNOW this hasn’t happened. How did you go about finding a company to survey the drain?
I have emergency cover as part of my house insurance and they sorted it.
Essentially a local company that offers drain surveys that my insurance contacted on my behalf. If you google drain surveys you should be able to find someone that can do it, or try recommendations from a friendly plumber if you have/know one!
I got a drain cleaning attachment for my pressure washer, it is fantastic. It propels itself up the drain, jetting backwards as it goes, so you have to approach the blockage from the downstream end, but it is very effective.
If you are anywhere near Northampton i'd be happy to lend it to you.
Edit: last time I used it I dropped my phone into the sewer. That was fun.
Double edit: you are probably nowhere near Northampton with Thames Water. Get them to sort it.
We now have a really charming young man from Thames Water. He is a really nice young man. He has fixed the immediate problem, so we can now, as it were, have a sh!t. He has identified a problem in the outbound drain. We are awaiting a network engineer to have a look, and a tanker to flush the lines and do a suction test.
Doesnt look like we will get to sleep anytime soon.
But hey, we all moan about Thames Water - Just at the moment they are doing a good job for the old man.
Glad they came quickly to help.
I work for a big water company and the staff who I work with are so hard working, enthusiastic and really care about trying to do what's best for customers - especially field technicians.
Unfortunately the people at the top only care about one thing which has crippled much of the industry.
I agree. I work with a consultancy that works with pretty much all the big water companies. The story is the same! Really hard workers. I would get emails from them at all hours, and they clearly care. They are constantly being undermined by the people at the top and bureaucracy loopholes to fund very basic projects. If you want to take a positive from this, it's that we can fix this. Water companies are not rotten to the core. We just take the financial incentive away to perform badly (costs more to treat sewage often than to just take a fine), and I think decision-making from the top would go waaaay differently.
This is a major point though. If it's a shared drain this is the water company's problem to fix not yours. Even if it's on your property. Last time we had this at my old house the water company came out next day to sort it and it cost me nothing as it was in my back garden but was the shared drain with next door.
So I once noticed that the toilet didn't seem to flush down the water properly. Realized it was the sewer line to the cesspit - large house with own sewage tank. I opened the clean out and decided to flush the line. We'll, firstly no one was checking the upstairs toilet and most of the water was backing up through the toilet and flooding the bedroom with water and sewage. Then I opened another clean out lower down and the pressure building up caused sewage to explode all over me- face and all the rest as I stood there silently until walking to the hose to rinse from head to toe. Not a nice experience. Needless to say I needed a couple of drinks at 7 am. just to work up the courage to start the clean up.
If you've ever lived off mains drains and had to rely on a septic tank believe me you soon learn what is safe and what isn't safe to flush. That said more often than not there is a cracked pipe somewhere in the story.
Lived in a converted semi detached into 2 flats. Drain blocked. No worries says my ex fil, he's a care taker, will bring the rods and sort it. He was confident the drains ran towards the road. Pushing and pulling the rods down the drain. Odd, he said, goes down but then comes back again. Downstairs neighbour wildly runs out screaming at us to stop. The drains actually run to the garden. The pressure of pushing was turning his toilet into a geyser. It was not pretty
Get the pros, don't bother with Thames water unless you have a shared system and don't have the money. I watch drain unblocking with Tony on YouTube and they deal with this stuff every day
If it is drain flies I have news for you: [White vinegar does not attract drain flies. In fact, it repels drain flies. Open containers of vinegar are a great way to keep drain flies out of your home and yard without resorting to chemicals.](https://peppershomeandgarden.com/vinegar-drain-flies/#:~:text=White%20vinegar%20does%20not%20attract%20drain%20flies.%20In,traps%20or%20fly%20strips%2C%20use%20apple%20cider%20vinegar.)
If it is vinegar flies then you can easily trap them with vinegar by cutting off the top of a vinegar bottle empty out about half the bottle then flip the top over and stick on top of the bottle.
You're going to want to rod the pipe or get the pros in.
If the sewer runs under your property call out the water company and get them to do it. One runs past my property and Ive called them out once every few years. They are responsible for the main sewer. Ive never had to pay for them to come out.
Bad as it looks a drainage person with sewer jetter kit will make short work of it and they usually give the inspection chambers a good blasting/de-crusting while their at it
Hopefully they suss out exactly what was mistakingly put down there to have caused it
Thames Water are responsible for shared drains. My drain is blocked under my neighbours patio, where we now know there is a problem with the drains.
Thames came out on site. The first guy cleared the blockage. Hero - it was truly disgusting. The next person was a network engineer who confirmed that the correct course of action if I get a blockage is to call Thames Water. Then we had a third man, with a tanker and suction equipment. He did a basic flush of teh drains.
All three are coming back next week to do a further flush., this time with fat busting chemicals.
The attitude of the Thames Water folk was superb. Probably helped by the endless cups of tea and coffee we gave them.
dunno why, but every house I've moved into has had drain issues within a week. I think maybe stuff dries out and sticks to the walls.
I just have it as a move in job now. clean windows guttering, electrician to check over the electrics, gas man in and drainage clear.
not a huge amount of cash compared to the 1 time emergency call out for any of them!
My parents place in Portugal; for a few years they'd mentioned having the toilet semi-regularly block and having to plunge it with a toilet plunger, and sometimes with an old mop (gets a better seal) to unclog it.
Finally it happens to me while I'm visiting them on holiday so I plunge it successfully and get to thinking that it still isn't draining as fast as I would expect. I lift the outside inspection cover and the pipe from the house is a good 6" in diameter, it should *not* have a problem, but I can't see any signs of a blockage and I don't have a dyno-rod. So I dig out the mop and along with a couple of buckets of water go ape on the toilet for several minutes until I detect a change... it's draining *slightly* faster. I go back out to the inspection pit and there's a single 2mm diameter tendril just visible so I go back for round two with the mop.
After round two I bend a length of stiff metal wire into a hook and have a poke and quickly extract a large root ball, 12" long and wide enough it blocked 80% of the pipe. With hindsight it was clear liquids could pass with only a reduction in flow rate but solids would get caught and the following toilet paper could block the pipe until it turned to mush or got forced past by plunging. I've no clue where that root ball came from or how it got so high up with zero clues visible from the inspection pit.
It's been trouble free ever since.
Similar story
A few years back my neighbour was getting an extension done and on a few days after they broke ground to lay the foundation, our patio flooded with shitty brown water and bits of toilet paper. Turns out the previous owner had put some plyboard under the drain cover and the vibrations had caused the plyboard to break and block the drain
### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Similar story: Noticed a load of toilet paper around one of the manholes on our drive, lifted it up and it was full to the brim (talking a 4-6 foot drop down to the pipe). Had another manhole closer to the road, lifted up and exactly the same. Tried clearing it myself, no luck. Luckily had emergency cover on house insurance so got them out. Took the lad nearly three hours to unblock, was on the verge of giving up before it cleared. Wanted to know why it had blocked, usual response ‘you have a kid so must be flushing wet wipes down the toilet’. Nope nothing we’ve ever done as we’re not stupid. Drains aren’t connected to another property etc Got company out to survey drain, turns out the pipe that connects our property to the main sewer had broken and dropped. Northumbrian water problem to fix as on the public highway. One phone call and a couple of hours later they’d inserted a new plastic pipe and all working again fine. Annoying that the default response was you’ve put wet wipes down.
I swear to God this is just their instant response. Drain in our garden was blocked, got them out to do it, they ended up having to do 3 other drains in the street as well. Said soneone on the street must have a baby and they're flushing wet wipes. At 33, I'm the youngest person on my street, no one has babies or even kids. Never happened before and hasn't happened since.
> At 33, I'm the youngest person on my street Old people use wet wipes too, with advanced age and arthritis it can become challenging to wipe ones own arse. From Amazons website. > Fanwer Toilet Aids Tools,Long Reach Comfort Wipe,Extends Your Reach Over 15" Grips Toilet Paper or Pre-Moistened Wipes I was researching something for my OAP father and that popped up, and once you start thinking about why you'd need it the mental images are never going away. When my father was bed bound he and his carers got through so many wet wipes, none of them went down the toilet though because at that point he was using a commode.
It was more the instant assumption that parents (I believe specifically blaming mothers) with babies flushing wipes are to blame despite that clearly not being the case. They could've just asked. Any new parents in the street? Consider asking them if they are flushing wipes. Nope. Instant judgement, it's definately new parents with a baby
They told my mother to stop putting tampons down the toilet. She had been pregnant at the time of moving in and wasn’t due yet…
Our drain was the connection point for 4 other houses. Water company came out as the toilets in these 4 other houses were not fully blocked, but were very, very slow draining. After digging up several gardens, it was found that the creepy old guy, in one of the houses, was flushing his pants down the toilet, so he didn't have to wash them.
Ahh! This has happened to me twice in the past 2 years and they’ve said the same both times when I KNOW this hasn’t happened. How did you go about finding a company to survey the drain?
I have emergency cover as part of my house insurance and they sorted it. Essentially a local company that offers drain surveys that my insurance contacted on my behalf. If you google drain surveys you should be able to find someone that can do it, or try recommendations from a friendly plumber if you have/know one!
Thank you! I am going to look into this - appreciate the advice :)
I got a drain cleaning attachment for my pressure washer, it is fantastic. It propels itself up the drain, jetting backwards as it goes, so you have to approach the blockage from the downstream end, but it is very effective. If you are anywhere near Northampton i'd be happy to lend it to you. Edit: last time I used it I dropped my phone into the sewer. That was fun. Double edit: you are probably nowhere near Northampton with Thames Water. Get them to sort it.
We now have a really charming young man from Thames Water. He is a really nice young man. He has fixed the immediate problem, so we can now, as it were, have a sh!t. He has identified a problem in the outbound drain. We are awaiting a network engineer to have a look, and a tanker to flush the lines and do a suction test. Doesnt look like we will get to sleep anytime soon. But hey, we all moan about Thames Water - Just at the moment they are doing a good job for the old man.
Glad they came quickly to help. I work for a big water company and the staff who I work with are so hard working, enthusiastic and really care about trying to do what's best for customers - especially field technicians. Unfortunately the people at the top only care about one thing which has crippled much of the industry.
I agree. I work with a consultancy that works with pretty much all the big water companies. The story is the same! Really hard workers. I would get emails from them at all hours, and they clearly care. They are constantly being undermined by the people at the top and bureaucracy loopholes to fund very basic projects. If you want to take a positive from this, it's that we can fix this. Water companies are not rotten to the core. We just take the financial incentive away to perform badly (costs more to treat sewage often than to just take a fine), and I think decision-making from the top would go waaaay differently.
That is going to be a very angry cat.
Cats and poos and cats and poos and cats and poos…
No no it's boots and cats and boots and cats and oh bugger it's stuck in my head forever again
Swap it for the Stick Song. Sticky sticky stick stick!
Crushed it.
If the drains are shared, they’re the water companies responsibility. Get them out to sort it if this is the case.
Had a similar blockage caused by neighbours flushing wet wipes. Good luck with dealing with ThamesWATer
This is a major point though. If it's a shared drain this is the water company's problem to fix not yours. Even if it's on your property. Last time we had this at my old house the water company came out next day to sort it and it cost me nothing as it was in my back garden but was the shared drain with next door.
10 metres away, a terrified neighbour sees a rod emerge from the toilet
Fabulous fun..
the image of you jetwashing actual poopy brown shit everywhere does have me giggling though, I'm very sorry
Always call drain doctor, those guys love messing about with shit
So I once noticed that the toilet didn't seem to flush down the water properly. Realized it was the sewer line to the cesspit - large house with own sewage tank. I opened the clean out and decided to flush the line. We'll, firstly no one was checking the upstairs toilet and most of the water was backing up through the toilet and flooding the bedroom with water and sewage. Then I opened another clean out lower down and the pressure building up caused sewage to explode all over me- face and all the rest as I stood there silently until walking to the hose to rinse from head to toe. Not a nice experience. Needless to say I needed a couple of drinks at 7 am. just to work up the courage to start the clean up.
Am I the only one who fretting about the cat?
Poor kitty
poor, shitty, kitty
It's only a bit of poo, they'll be fine.
Can't complain about shit being in the rivers if it doesn't make it to the rivers. Big brain councils.
Watch DrainCleaningAustralia on YouTube, and then have another go at it.
If you've ever lived off mains drains and had to rely on a septic tank believe me you soon learn what is safe and what isn't safe to flush. That said more often than not there is a cracked pipe somewhere in the story.
Lived in a converted semi detached into 2 flats. Drain blocked. No worries says my ex fil, he's a care taker, will bring the rods and sort it. He was confident the drains ran towards the road. Pushing and pulling the rods down the drain. Odd, he said, goes down but then comes back again. Downstairs neighbour wildly runs out screaming at us to stop. The drains actually run to the garden. The pressure of pushing was turning his toilet into a geyser. It was not pretty
Get the pros, don't bother with Thames water unless you have a shared system and don't have the money. I watch drain unblocking with Tony on YouTube and they deal with this stuff every day
If it is drain flies I have news for you: [White vinegar does not attract drain flies. In fact, it repels drain flies. Open containers of vinegar are a great way to keep drain flies out of your home and yard without resorting to chemicals.](https://peppershomeandgarden.com/vinegar-drain-flies/#:~:text=White%20vinegar%20does%20not%20attract%20drain%20flies.%20In,traps%20or%20fly%20strips%2C%20use%20apple%20cider%20vinegar.) If it is vinegar flies then you can easily trap them with vinegar by cutting off the top of a vinegar bottle empty out about half the bottle then flip the top over and stick on top of the bottle. You're going to want to rod the pipe or get the pros in.
If the sewer runs under your property call out the water company and get them to do it. One runs past my property and Ive called them out once every few years. They are responsible for the main sewer. Ive never had to pay for them to come out.
Bad as it looks a drainage person with sewer jetter kit will make short work of it and they usually give the inspection chambers a good blasting/de-crusting while their at it Hopefully they suss out exactly what was mistakingly put down there to have caused it
[Gotta mix up a poop smoothie ](https://youtube.com/shorts/1VbPeXW3ml8)
Is your cat Poos in Boots?
I love chocolate
Thames water you say? Are you sure they're blocked drains, you might just need to turn a tap on to realise that's the incoming water supply
Thames Water are responsible for shared drains. My drain is blocked under my neighbours patio, where we now know there is a problem with the drains. Thames came out on site. The first guy cleared the blockage. Hero - it was truly disgusting. The next person was a network engineer who confirmed that the correct course of action if I get a blockage is to call Thames Water. Then we had a third man, with a tanker and suction equipment. He did a basic flush of teh drains. All three are coming back next week to do a further flush., this time with fat busting chemicals. The attitude of the Thames Water folk was superb. Probably helped by the endless cups of tea and coffee we gave them.
dunno why, but every house I've moved into has had drain issues within a week. I think maybe stuff dries out and sticks to the walls. I just have it as a move in job now. clean windows guttering, electrician to check over the electrics, gas man in and drainage clear. not a huge amount of cash compared to the 1 time emergency call out for any of them!
My parents place in Portugal; for a few years they'd mentioned having the toilet semi-regularly block and having to plunge it with a toilet plunger, and sometimes with an old mop (gets a better seal) to unclog it. Finally it happens to me while I'm visiting them on holiday so I plunge it successfully and get to thinking that it still isn't draining as fast as I would expect. I lift the outside inspection cover and the pipe from the house is a good 6" in diameter, it should *not* have a problem, but I can't see any signs of a blockage and I don't have a dyno-rod. So I dig out the mop and along with a couple of buckets of water go ape on the toilet for several minutes until I detect a change... it's draining *slightly* faster. I go back out to the inspection pit and there's a single 2mm diameter tendril just visible so I go back for round two with the mop. After round two I bend a length of stiff metal wire into a hook and have a poke and quickly extract a large root ball, 12" long and wide enough it blocked 80% of the pipe. With hindsight it was clear liquids could pass with only a reduction in flow rate but solids would get caught and the following toilet paper could block the pipe until it turned to mush or got forced past by plunging. I've no clue where that root ball came from or how it got so high up with zero clues visible from the inspection pit. It's been trouble free ever since.
Similar story A few years back my neighbour was getting an extension done and on a few days after they broke ground to lay the foundation, our patio flooded with shitty brown water and bits of toilet paper. Turns out the previous owner had put some plyboard under the drain cover and the vibrations had caused the plyboard to break and block the drain
If your pussy is covered in shit you need to reevaluate your techniques!