Blockages

We only have one toilet in our house and a pretty rubbish toilet it is at that. As anybody who has had the honour of visiting me and using it will tell you, you have to pump the handle very hard and very fast to even get it to flush. I've lost count of the amount of visitors I've 'lost' up there. They go for a wee and 20 minutes later I can still here them frantically pumping and muttering under their breath.... Well at least I hope they are just trying to flush the toilet.... For the record - it's fine - your wee doesn't scare me. Just ask for help.

Anyway the toilet is pants and even when it does flush it has a nasty habit of getting blocked. Very blocked. This means it needs to be unblocked and, somehow, the job always falls to me. My OH usually runs very fast in the opposite direction muttering 'it's beyond all hope....you need to call a plumber' knowing that I can not be beaten by a toilet and will therefore fix it for him.

I used to use the toilet brush and just ram it down the u-bend and pump very hard and fast (god, there's a lot of pumping going on in this post) and that would usually do it. Then I got sick of the kids trying to paint the loo with the brush so I got rid of it and replaced it with one of those Toilet Duck plastic sticks with 'teeth' on the end that you use to grip a disposable cleaning pad.

Very posh. Very bloody useless at unblocking toilets.

So next time the toilet got blocked I stared down at the bare and barren plastic stick and realised I would need to improvise. I needed a large cloth the teeth could grip and I could use to create a vacuum. I looked around and my eyes fell upon the baby's comfort blanket....... Now before anybody calls Childline on his behalf - his comfort blanket is just a muslin cloth and he's got about 40 (or 39 now) so I didn't think it would damage him beyond all hope. And it worked a treat! Until he appeared at the toilet door and saw me ramming his (now poo covered) favourite blanket up and down the u-bend of the toilet.

"Ah ah ah ah" he sobbed.

"NO NO NO NO" I shouted - pushing him backwards with my foot as he reached for his beloved.

"AAAHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHH" he wailed.

"NOOOOO" I screeched, actually pushing him backwards out of the room and locking the door.

A lot of tears, an Asda bag and a quick lob out the window later it was over - the toilet was clear, I was clean and the baby was (slightly) less traumatised.

So the next time it happened I thought twice before using his comfort blanket and reached for one of my OH's old t-shirts instead.

This also worked a treat until the t-shirt became jammed down the u-bend and snapped off the end of the stick.....

So I now had a toilet full to the brim with brown water and a large t-shirt jammed down the u-bend. Oh and no rubber gloves.....

Now would anybody like a cup of tea?

Tweet