# Stupid Customers ... What did they do?



## PLUMBER_BILL (Oct 23, 2009)

One comes to mind to start this thread.

New house, they moved in Friday. 
Sunday call comes in, kitchen sink won't drain. 

I respond, island sink was blocked, pile of magazines and newspaper on counter. Yep, she was getting rid of them down the disposal.

About 50' 2" line filled with paper machae!

And then said this is covered under warranty isn't it? :furious:


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

I love jobs like that. I had one where they ran 30 pounds of potato's down the drain. Was an 80' 2" PVC drain, had to cut it open and jet the muck out of it. Also had one guy that was mad at his wife for not cooking up the cabbage so he ran 4 heads down the disposal, plugged up his building sewer, it all backed up out of his basement water closet.


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## uaplumber (Jun 16, 2008)

Home owners wife "disposed" of a jar of dill pickles down the toilet. Rusted steel bolts holding the toilet to the concrete floor. This was before dremels. The counter and wall were right against the tank. I had to bust the toilet to get it out of there.


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## UnclogNH (Mar 28, 2009)

Stupid people make us money. :thumbsup:


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

trimming out a bath remodel last Fri. Tell everyone that water is off. 4 bath house is drained down. Sweat new valves on. So there is about 10 kids running around. They're all flushing away. ( Don't bother me none). 

So I go to the basement to turn the water on, and at the precise moment I turn the handle on the main, a kid flushes. So, you know what happens, you get the pop and all the air at the ballcock. Well, you would have thought the wc exploded.:laughing: This kid screams like I don't know what. Mass hysteria in the place! Takes a couple of minutes for them to figure out what happened. 

I guess I'll be hearing from thieir attorney...."You scarred the child for life. She can no longer use a toilet..."


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

RealLivePlumber said:


> trimming out a bath remodel last Fri. Tell everyone that water is off. 4 bath house is drained down. Sweat new valves on. So there is about 10 kids running around. They're all flushing away. ( Don't bother me none).
> 
> So I go to the basement to turn the water on, and at the precise moment I turn the handle on the main, a kid flushes. So, you know what happens, you get the pop and all the air at the ballcock. Well, you would have thought the wc exploded.:laughing: This kid screams like I don't know what. Mass hysteria in the place! Takes a couple of minutes for them to figure out what happened.
> 
> I guess I'll be hearing from thieir attorney...."You scarred the child for life. She can no longer use a toilet..."


I had a job where I was unclogging a water closet in a powder room, and this kid starts to freak out when I started to flush the water closet. The lady comes running takes the kid away and calms him down and come back to explain what the issue was. The kid is about 6 or 7 years old he was using the water closet one day and the ejector pump kicked on and blasted the poor kid full of water. Ever since the kid has a super fear of water closets.


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## TheMaster (Jun 12, 2009)

Dump an aquarium into the lavatory or kitchen sink/disposal. That one seems to be problem for some people...especially that rent.


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## pauliplumber (Feb 9, 2009)

TheMaster said:


> Dump an aquarium into the lavatory or kitchen sink/disposal. That one seems to be problem for some people...especially that rent.


 I just cleaned aquarium rocks out of a disposal last week.


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## bartnc37 (Feb 24, 2009)

on the subject of exploding toilets had a sloan flushmate tank explode! The guy had just flushed and when it came back up to pressure it split right on the seam between the top and bottom half. Blew the lid off across a 10x10 room and landed in the cats litter box. Missed a very nice st thomas pedestal by about 6 inches and the tile was nothing cheap either. The guy said he was darn lucky he had just used the toilet or he would have filled his pants!


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## Lee in Texas (Jun 24, 2009)

Replace sewer line from the street to the last fixture...except for the ancient POS cast iron cleanout. It remained under the tiny flowerbed because the H.O. didn't want his jasmine pant disturbed. He had a home made wooden ****box over it, of course overflowing with **** and toilet paper. I told him $750 to dig it up and clear it.


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## ChrisConnor (Dec 31, 2009)

Don't you just love people that thing a food waste disposal is a "GARBAGE" disposal?

Plenty of people who are "chock full o'stupid" and will stand at the disposal and empty an entire refrigerator's worth of old food down the sink as if it's a trash can. 

When you tell them that they overloaded the plumbing, they think I'm stupid because that's what the "garbage disposal" is made for.

I say no, put it in the trash can and a few have said they don't want to "add to the land fill".


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

*stopped up drain line*

a dumb ass old lady calls me and states she has
a stopped up kitchen drain line....

I get there and can smell fuel oil in the air
and the sink is full to the top ....

She tells me that another old lady told her to pour a couple of gallons of fuel oil down the drain... told her it "lubricates the pipes"..

so now I got to fool with a few gallons of fuel oil in the drain line...bailit all out ect.....

that made a hell of a mess.....but it really lubed up my K-50 sectionial machine....:laughing:


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## leak1 (Mar 25, 2009)

was in a basement years back and seen a 1in. gasline reduced down to a 1/2in. line with a shutoff valve and a 6 ft. hose attached, i asked the ho what it was for? he said he used it to lite his woodburner. YIKES!!! . back when they used cloth baby diapers my pops went on a disposal call. yep you guessed it! the lady washed diapers in kitchen sink and put poo poo down the disposal, YUK!!!!! unbelieveable!!!


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## Miguel (Aug 10, 2009)

Wow! This could be a long list. :blink:

I roughed an ensuite in a new timber framed home. 6' soaker, double lavs, bidet, WC, and 4' showerstall. It took awhile for the Mrs to decide on a floorplan (my blueprints had the ensuite Xed out right from the start of the job) but finally she decided on a layout so I did it.
THE VERY NEXT DAY she changed her mind and faxed me "the new layout". This was a proper b*tch to do since everything was run in a raised floor and had to be installed from the topside before the floor was sheeted. But I did it and gave the GC the bill for extra work.

This went on 5 times until finally she decided that the original plan was the best one and please do it that way. 
I submitted 5 invoices for the extras, each one a little higher than the previous. All were paid.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

As far as disposal stories a few come to mind...

In a kitchen at a country club they poured a 5 gallon pail of cooked white rice into their super heavy duty disposal. 30' of 2" line plugged solid. The blow bag got it after about 10 minutes!:laughing: The snake sure wasn't getting it done. I was just about to unplug it with Mr. Saw Zall...

Customer got rid of an old container of Metamucil down the disposal...
The customer got new pipes under the sink. That stuff set up like rubber.:laughing:

Customer's kid disposed of hamster food down the disposal. The snake got that one.

Customer tossed a couple of lobstah shells in the disposal. Banged all the tubular stuff on a bucket and it unpacked... Couldn't they have called earlier before the stink happened?


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## Bill (Jun 17, 2008)

Mmm, this one comes to mind.

Got a call for a stopped up toilet. We go and see. We walk in and the fudge was right to the brim! Damn, must have stood on the seat to drop it in! Worst thing was they tried to say it just happened.


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

Redwood said:


> As far as disposal stories a few come to mind...
> 
> In a kitchen at a country club they poured a 5 gallon pail of cooked white rice into their super heavy duty disposal. 30' of 2" line plugged solid. The blow bag got it after about 10 minutes!:laughing: The snake sure wasn't getting it done. I was just about to unplug it with Mr. Saw Zall...
> 
> ...


You needed a K-60 for that rice job :laughing:


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

SewerRatz said:


> You needed a K-60 for that rice job :laughing:


Not really the killer was the running trap about 6' down the line under the floor...

And the 2-90's before you got that far....


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

Redwood said:


> Not really the killer was the running trap about 6' down the line under the floor...
> 
> And the 2-90's before you got that far....


 Oh I was just kidding. I am far from a K-60 fanboy. Just after reading all the great things the K-60 can do on the other forum, I almost started to believe it can do anything, including make a milkshake.


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## smythers1968 (Feb 4, 2009)

I do a lot of work for different landlords and know the ones where I can give their tenants sh!t

So, Landlord calls and says WC won't flush. I went and used a toilet auger - seemed clear. Loaded it with paper wouldn't flush

Pulled the WC and no water at flange, went ahead and rodded line. Reset toliet and try again still will not completely clear

Pull toilet and take it outside, tried looking in both ends for a blockage, nothing. I smacked the toliet trap with a hammer and wha-la and freak'n small cell phone

I take the phone inside and ask the tenants who does this belong to, no one wants to take ownership. So I say well I'll be back I'm going down to Alltel and they will tell me, well one guy say it's his girlfriends.

Made them pay for a new toilet and service call before I would put a new one in...Go ahead and call your landlord oh yea I already did


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## PLUMBER_BILL (Oct 23, 2009)

THE BEST I HAD ...

Back in the late 70's call came in late Friday night. Mr. Parr will cat litter hurt my water softner. The cleaning lady by accident dumped in cat litter instead of salt. I replied I don't think it will hurt the softner as long as it does not regenerate. "Pull the plug to stop the clock and put the unit on bypasss" We will be out Monday to clean it out. Five minutes later she called back. Mr. Parr I forgot to tell you, that was used cat litter. Turned out her son cleaned the litter box, dumped it into a empty salt bag. Left the bag right where he found it, by the salt. We installed a new softner!


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## pauliplumber (Feb 9, 2009)

Not call me FIRST.


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## plumb4fun (Feb 18, 2009)

I gave a homeowner a t&m price to raise the second story water and waste in the ceiling of his down stairs kitchen so he could eliminate the dropped ceiling. He tries to cut corners and does the copper himself, right in the path where the waste piping has to go. So in the end I had to cut out his work and start over and got paid for both anyway!:thumbsup:


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## ROCKSTARPLUMBER (Dec 14, 2008)

A very select, special few, call about their water heater and stove not working. I have learned to ask them, if they have paid the gas bill or not. Hate having to charge them for that.


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