Over this past weekend, doing my favorite pastime, reading DIY chat rooms, I ran across one of those unusual DIY problems that make you scratch your head and say “what do I do now?” It went something like this:
“With my luck, I knocked over a can of hairspray after I flushed the toilet. The cap of the bottle fell straight into the toilet and in a split second was gone. The maintenance guy in my building tried to get it out. He said he used an auger and a snake. I just can't believe that a plastic cap would get so wedged into the toilet that it won't come out. Should I believe that he tried his best and get a new toilet and just try it myself? Anybody have tips and/or tricks that might help me out? I would call a professional plumber but that's about $150 just for the drain clean and then another $100 for the toilet install if I need to get a new one plus the toilet. Another thing, if I were to do it myself, are the bolts that hold the toilet in place replaceable without replacing the closet flange? I think the maintenance guy bent one of the bolts when he put the toilet back in place.
Well I’ve never dropped a hairspray can lid in the toilet, not enough hair to need the stuff, but I am the father of 3 sons and 1 grandson who kept me busy for years rescuing things from the toilet, flushing unbearable things down the toilet and of course I have conducted more gold fish funerals in the toilet than I care to remember. You haven’t lived until you’ve had to rescue a mad and very scared cat from the toilet as a result of one well meaning child who was “just giving the cat a bath”. With these thoughts in mind I felt that I was talented enough to help this poor guy out and so I answered the following:
“I suspect that the cap did not go far because the "s" shaped trap wouldn't normally let something that hard go past but the maintenance man has probably done a good job of jamming it in there good. There is a good possibility that if the toilet were drained and unbolted from the flange so that you could access the hairspray cap from the other direction and that you might be able to push it back out. I would hate to think that you would have to replace the entire toilet. As to the flange bolts they are replaceable and many times a good plumber will replace the old ones when he puts in a new toilet or reinstalls an old one. The most important part of reinstallation is getting a good seal back on the flange with a new wax ring. Hope this helps or maybe one of our pros here online will have an even better idea.
Well before I sat down to write this I checked back and no one else had come up with a better idea so I guess mine works. So if your kids rubber ducky disappears and you find an inordinate amount of water in the bathroom floor don’t even bother asking the kid…THEY LIE!. Check the toilet and fast before someone sits down and let’s say “complicates” the matter further by adding something else to the mix.
As an afterthought while thinking of my boys I was reminded if the analogy that girls are much easier to raise than boys. Why? Because you can sit a little girl in the floor with a pile of toys and she will stay there for hours and play. You sit a little boy in a pile of toys and he will crawl to the nearest electrical outlet and try to shove something into it.
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