Plumbing Problem

Soon after we moved into our new apartment, I noticed that the sink in our guestroom bathroom would leak. It's hard to explain, but basically, there's a pipe that goes down into a hole that has a larger diameter than the pipe. Anyhow, if too much water flowed down, it seemed like the lower pipe couldn't drain fast enough and the water would overflow to the bathroom floor. This happened repeatedly as everybody who knew of the problem wanted to reenact it (richard...my dad...our neighbor). Typically, we tried to control the water flow, but on occasion, we'd still find the bathroom floor flooded with water.

Today, Richard decided to work on it. He stuck a snake down the pipe to see if there was a clog. But when things didn't sound quite right, he took a flashlight and was horrified to see what our pipe was clogged with. We put the contents in a bowl for this picture (the apple is simply for size reference). So no wonder the water wasn't draining properly...this is what was in our pipe:

Yup, that's right. A large rock, a huge wad of paper, some plastic thing....and some more rocks. Stuff that could definitely give you some plumbing problems...and stuff that never should be in pipes!

And since our kitchen tongs weren't long enough, here's what Richard picked up at the neighborhood "hardware store" for just under a dollar to pull all the stuff out.

We're glad the sink drains perfectly now. :)