Don't Flush the Toilet Paper!

"Don't forget to NOT flush the toilet paper!!" was a yelled reminder during the last half of the week that my family was visiting. (You can read about their visit here.) I think it was Thursday morning while we were all trying to get left for different destinations that Sam came upstairs and calmly told his mom (Gail), "Mom, the washer is flooding the basement." I think Gail questioned him, not quite believing it, and I ran down to look. And yes, the washer was definitely flooding the basement!! I had started the laundry earlier in the morning and it was trying to drain, but was instead gushing up and out of the wall box in which the washer hook-ups and drain are located. There was water once again running under the wall, out the door, and into the utility room. 

A similar event had just happened a week prior, except that time the water was coming up from the sewer line and out from under the toilet. Only slightly gross, right? After several phone calls for that specific incident, a plumber came out, augered out the sewer line, couldn't find any real cause, ran lots of water down the drains for a while, and we thought it was fixed. The plumber did admonish me to not flush anything more than toilet paper down the toilet. Flushable wipes, flushable toilet bowl cleaning wipes, and anything that is marketed as flushable really isn't flushable aside from toilet paper, he said. 

Unbeknownst to the plumber, I had gotten that speech before. The very first house that Jason and I rented had sewer issues and, after the landlord got it fixed, the rules were: don't flush anything but toilet paper. Nothing else. I mentioned to the plumber, at our current house and situation, that I just couldn't figure out what would have clogged it unless Little Miss Pumpkin had started flushing foreign objects down the toilet
while no one was looking. Because, we only flush toilet paper around here. But even that flushing allowance would soon be put to a stop, although we didn't know it yet!

After stopping the washing machine, sopping up all of the water, and setting fans to run to try and dry out the place, we all left for our respective destinations. And I called the plumbers. Thankfully they were able to come out that afternoon to auger the sewer line. This time, however, they were also bringing their fancy video camera to run down the pipe to see what the problem was. Thanks to their little camera, I was able to see with my own eyes what was causing the backed up water: a completely broken sewer pipe just at the edge of our foundation. Broken as in literally sheared off and pushed almost below where the pipe comes out of the foundation. All of our activities that required things going down the sewer line were basically coming to a dead-end with only a 1 inch tall opening to try and get through to the rest of the sewer line.

When I saw that, I saw dollar signs ringing up. The plumber guy - he saw that there could be very minimal use of anything sewer related, and absolutely nothing man-made could be flushed down the toilet. And that, my friends, is how we became pros at bagging, not flushing, toilet paper. In the hot summer. With only air conditioning circulating the air inside the house. Just don't flush the toilet paper!

Thanks to the plumbers working out some fast scheduling, it was only four and a half days of "don't flush the toilet paper," but it was the last four days of my family's visit! Someone said that Bob and Sam, my nephews, will probably never forget that trip! Not only did we refrain from flushing toilet paper, but we took quick showers only when necessary, Mom and Gail took the laundry to the laundromat one morning, and we tried to utilize any and all public facilities to the max whenever we could. My Mom even made special trips to the gas station, or Wal-Mart, because she didn't want to stand the chance of clogging up the sewer with ANYTHING. It made for some amusing conversations, made us realize how hard it is to break such an in-grained habit that seems natural, and made us wish for fresh air circulating in the house.

I believe we emptied the trashcans at least twice the first full day of the "don't flush the toilet paper" program. Not because they were full, but because it was starting to odorize the house. Part-way through the second day, we were running out of plastic shopping bags to use as trash-can liners. And it was still stinking even with taking the trash out multiple times. Somehow, I came up with the brilliant (I thought) idea to use cheap, sandwich ziploc bags to enclose, and seal, the toilet paper after each bathroom use before tossing it in the trash-can. So each bathroom became stocked with ziploc sandwich bags, and the reminder, "Don't flush the toilet paper!" continued to ring through the house whenever someone heard a bathroom door shut.

My family left on Sunday evening, very graciously excusing the inconveniences that were placed upon them while visiting, and Jason and I prepared for our next guests to arrive Monday morning. Along with the plumbers who were coming to dig up our sewer line. The plumbing guy had said to expect them really early so they could get the bulk of the work done before the heat of the day. So I was expecting a 7am arrival, maybe 6ish. That would all be fine and dandy, as I had to go pick up our next guests at the airport. As it turned out, they had to wait for the City to open so they could pick up the necessary permits before arriving. So they didn't get here as soon as I thought, and I ended up being over an hour late to the airport. It turned out ok, and our guests were not bothered by it too much. I made sure to take advantage of the public facilities at the airport and tried to kindly remind our guests to do the same. (Actually, I think I just said, "Does anybody have to go? Because we may not have the use of a toilet for the rest of the day!") I didn't know how long it would take to fix the sewer, and was hoping to lessen the "don't flush the toilet paper" imposition for our guests. (We had informed them of what had happened and our state of life before they hopped on their airplane.)

As it turned out, when we got home the plumbers had just finished up the repair and we passed on the street. I asked Jason when we got into the house if there were any conditions, besides don't flush anything but toilet paper, of which we all needed to be aware. He said no, the plumber guys had repaired, tried it all out, and said we were good to resume sewer usage activities as normal! It was a bit of a relief, to be honest. I went through all the bathrooms and dumped the trash once more, hoping to start lessening the lingering odor that came from bagging the toilet paper for four days. It took a bit of time, and some air freshening techniques (oil diffusing), but the odor finally went away. 

I decided that we, in our first world living, take things like being able to flush toilet paper for granted. And we shouldn't. And, just in case anyone else ends up having to bag toilet paper- try to do it in the winter when you can crack a window. And, stock the bathrooms with cheap, sandwich, Ziploc baggies. Still take the trash out twice a day if you can, even with those other stench-squelching measures in place. And lastly, don't flush anything but toilet paper. Save your sewer lines, save your headaches, save your money, and don't flush anything but toilet paper. Just because it says "flushable" on the package doesn't mean it should be flushed. Only flush the toilet paper. Unless your sewer line is broken and then, "Don't flush the toilet paper!!!!"