Our house was built in 1971. That’s considered old now. To me, it’s just yesterday. Anyway, I have learned to rely a lot on Liquid Plumbr but it won’t do the whole job if there is an accumulation in the main sewer line.

I washed a king-size mattress pad yesterday morning. A little later, I noticed grunge dirt in the bottom of Ed’s tub. Gee, I wondered, were his feet that dirty? There was also water on the floor. Okay, I'm thinking, he didn’t pull the curtains in. So I cleaned everything up. It was a dirty job.

I did my second load of laundry, a large one because it was the king-sized sheets and there is a third sheet I put on top because the kids (cats) join us in the bed and I don’t want them to sully the comforter. A bit later, I hear galumph,glug, glop noises coming from the master bath. I look in and the floor is flooded, the bathtub is half full, there is floating grunge everywhere. I realize that the draining from the washing machine was creating a sewer overload and everything was backing up.

Ed gets home and I tell him and we call the plumber because, he said, he wasn't going to do it. Just as well, because it was a big job requiring brute strength.

The plumber’s chief guy is Tom. We like him a lot. He had to call a second guy from the shop to come help and they couldn't locate the "clean-out," which I learn is an accessible conduit to the main sewer line usually located outside near the bathroom. They couldn’t find it. I pulled out a lot of opportunistic plants, not unattractive, but we didn’t plant them. They were, I thought, in the way and these particular ones pull out easy. Ed hates when I do that and accuses me of just leaving them. So I had to get a lawn bag and put them in and that was the hard part.

At 5 o'clock, they gave up and recommended an expert sub-contractor and arramged for him to come that very night. That was good because the spare bathroom was also affected and I had gone to my sister's to go to the bathroom. Also, I am drinking more water lately. You get the picture. This, I thought, can’t go on.

The sub-contractor, whose name was Charlie, found the clean-out in the first five minutes. He inserted a roto-rooter, or whatever is an industrial type cleaning tool, and cleared it, and tested everything and went home.

Tom came this morning and re-set the commode into the floor. The tile around it is damaged, so we will get Steve, aces handyman to replace the tile. It will have to be contrasting tile, since in times past we have looked for matching tile and couldn’t find any. I am thinking a tile, perhaps with a pattern, so that it looks intentional and funky. Anything that pretends to be an exact match will just look tacky.

The sub-contractor’s charge was $250. Ed got a discount from Tom on their fees, so the whole cost was $300. I can now sympathize with the passengers on that cruise ship where the electricity went down and they had no toilet facilities.

Charlie gave us a tutorial on what to use for toilet paper and what not to do. He said Scott’s 1,000 sheet roll from a regular market, not from a big-box store, degraded properly and practically no other type did. He also said biodegradable wet wipes do not biodegrade as rapidly as they should. He also said we should have hung on to our old toilet commode in the spare bathroom and just got fittings to update it because the commodes made after 1981 are water-savers and not enough water pressure pushes through to thoroughly move things through the sewage line and that stuff that does not biodegrade properly collects and we have this problem. He said we should keep our eyes out for anyone discarding an old toilet. Right.

I offer these tips for anyone having similar problems.
It was late and Ed, who has been fighting a cold, went to bed around 8. Around 10, I was getting ready to hang it up and went to check on the cats and couldn’t find Max. He was nowhere. I woke Ed, because I didn't want to worry all by myself. I went again out on to the pool deck and I noticed one of the doors slightly ajar. He’s out there, damn. I pushed it open farther to give him a chance to re-enter if he came back. I searched around the house with a flashlight. Finally, a black shape caught my eye and he was back on the pool deck. Bad kitty. It turns out that door needs some clean-up, oiling, etc. because it doesn’t want to mate properly and a determined kitty can just push it open. I was very relieved. Ed, who said I had ruined his rest, stayed up watching extremely bad television – alien invasions, battles with insects, and the like and I went to bed.

Tom came this morning and re-set the toilet and I spent 2 hours on my hands and knees with every cleaning product known to man, plus plus throwaway gloves and disinfectants, and got Ed’s bathroom clean. It shineth. The guest shower wasn't as grungy and it needs a clean-up too but not now, please. I am taking my nap.

Xx, Teal