# Things pulled back.



## Dpeckplb

Hey what's the weirdest things you guys have pulled out of a drain? I've seen some funny things, hot wheels, make up containers, bottles, watches, rings a plastic rally horn and last week a guy at work brought a rhino back. 
It's never a dull moment in service, I just hate when condoms get brought back and the customer says they don't use them, I usually leave pretty quickly on that note.


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## plbgbiz

...


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## Tommy plumber

Dentures. From a toilet. That one sticks with me. The lady wanted them back. Perhaps her dirty dentures were expensive.


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## incarnatopnh

Smartphones. The womens rooms in the local bars are good for 2 -3 a month.


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## KoleckeINC

Sexy women's underwear, grocery bag of dental floss and scuba steve underwater action hero


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## SewerRatz

Vaseline jar from a water closet, size 80 underwear from a 2" clean out. Grossest I would say dead skunk from a drain tile, my father pulled out a miscarriage fetus from a water closet.


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## 422 plumber

Shot glass from a toilet, a key ring full of keys from a floor drain at a nuke, the lead man started laughing, and said he lost that key ring 4 years ago.


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## Coolcanuck

Little mermaid McDonald's toy from a WC. Some kid though they were doing the right thing lol. Have kids a flashlight one time and they plugged the building main Friday evening for the next month to see me.


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## gear junkie

This was removed after renter's gave me a huge sob story about how bad the plumbing was and it was always clogged. They should've been given Oscars when I showed the the chunk of meat that I pulled out the toilet.


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## CaberTosser

A hypodermic needle from a W/C at a Burger King.


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## Plumb26

SewerRatz said:


> Vaseline jar from a water closet, size 80 underwear from a 2" clean out. Grossest I would say dead skunk from a drain tile, my father pulled out a *miscarriage fetus* from a water closet.




Did it grow up to become SewerRatz?


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## 422 plumber

Tommy plumber said:


> Dentures. From a toilet. That one sticks with me. The lady wanted them back. Perhaps her dirty dentures were expensive.


A local plumber, now deceased retrieved his own dentures from his main, about 20' from where it tied into the city main. He took them inside and boiled them, and wore them the rest of his life. It also earned him a rep as the "go to" guy for rodding drains.

Sent from my iPhone using PlumbingZone


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## 422 plumber

CaberTosser said:


> A hypodermic needle from a W/C at a Burger King.


I had the same at a Casey's convenience store. I pulled the WC and saw something, stuck in across the bottom of the trap way. I thought it was packaging, like shoplifters like to flush, and stuck my fingers into the trapway to get it. I was only wearing nitrile gloves and got a rude shock. Luckily, I didn't get stuck. Now I use forceps or a coat hanger.

Sent from my iPhone using PlumbingZone


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## Hillside

gear junkie said:


> This was removed after renter's gave me a huge sob story about how bad the plumbing was and it was always clogged. They should've been given Oscars when I showed the the chunk of meat that I pulled out the toilet.


Someone's gotta chew up their food a little better


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## Coolcanuck

I pulled a bag of rotten meat from the bottom of a bowl when I first started int the trade. When I mentioned it to the tenant she told me it wasn't meat but a feminine hygiene product, we both blushed as I held it to show her.


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## Bigwrenchjosh

Tommy plumber said:


> Dentures. From a toilet. That one sticks with me. The lady wanted them back. Perhaps her dirty dentures were expensive.


I had the exact same thing at my neighbor ladies house. She "had no idea" what was in the toilet but when I pulled the bowl and flipped it upside down the dentures where stuck in the exit hole. I pulled them out and she was there with a bowl of bleach water. Like you said, they must be spendy.


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## Drain Pro

Bigwrenchjosh said:


> I had the exact same thing at my neighbor ladies house. She "had no idea" what was in the toilet but when I pulled the bowl and flipped it upside down the dentures where stuck in the exit hole. I pulled them out and she was there with a bowl of bleach water. Like you said, they must be spendy.


Pretty much same story here. People always seem to want them back.


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## CaberTosser

422 plumber said:


> I had the same at a Casey's convenience store. I pulled the WC and saw something, stuck in across the bottom of the trap way. I thought it was packaging, like shoplifters like to flush, and stuck my fingers into the trapway to get it. I was only wearing nitrile gloves and got a rude shock. Luckily, I didn't get stuck. Now I use forceps or a coat hanger.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using PlumbingZone


This was the same deal, I had to pull it to find it because it was a revisit after a previous call to auger the thing, so I had a feeling that a foreign object would be in there. I never use my hands for getting them out though, its always nitrile gloves and whatever tool fits the bill, be it long needlenose, pliers, a coat hangar heated red hot to cut-melt plastic that won't make a corner, etc. The hot coat hangar trick works well on toothbrushes, etc that can't make the corners.


I have to amend my list. I was once on a renovation of a home that was the former estate of one of Calgary's early big-wigs. I was hosing down the floor in a basement mechanical room and the floor drain was plugged. I cleared a bunch of stuff with my shop vac and it was still plugged so I hit it with a closet auger as I suspected the blockage would be right at the trap. I cleared the drain and felt resistance while retrieving; I came back with a length of braided wire like one would use for hanging pictures. The wire however was not all, it had about 7 or 8 airline size liquor bottles that it was lashed around! Someone in that house had such a drinking problem they were hiding it in the floor drain! I've spoken with an older male client in the neighborhood who was mentored in business by the former owner of said estate and he informed me that the culprit would have been one of the fellows sons, who died in his mid 30's in the early 1970's of a variety of substance abuse issues. I think it was around 1998 that this happened. The present half-billionaire owner wants to renovate again, and my other client is connecting us . It was a previous owner whom I'd spent 11 months (2-3 days of the week) renovating the place for.


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## Will

Don't know for sure what caused this, but above that bloody 90 was a mess of bloody rags, towels and who knows what else. I keep telling myself it was from a bloody nose gone bad, but I'm not sure what it was......Was from a day care full of babies....I really hope someone didn't have a miscarriage.


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## budders

SewerRatz said:


> Vaseline jar from a water closet, size 80 underwear from a 2" clean out. Grossest I would say dead skunk from a drain tile, my father pulled out a miscarriage fetus from a water closet.


 lol u win


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## love2surf927

Coolcanuck said:


> I pulled a bag of rotten meat from the bottom of a bowl when I first started int the trade. When I mentioned it to the tenant she told me it wasn't meat but a feminine hygiene product, we both blushed as I held it to show her.


What the hell, I'm drawing a black here....

Interesting thread.


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## redbeardplumber

^^^^ glad I'm not the only one...mind went to some weird places trying to figure it out. Lol


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## budders

I dont have anything out of the ordinary usual toothbrush shaving stuff a small thin plastic cup "soft blockage"


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## SewerRatz

Pulled birds out of sink lines. The birds tend to make a nest on the vent stack for the sink line and get sucked in.


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## Will

Dr Pepper anyone?


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## Unclog1776

Looks like they followed up the dr pepper with a bunch of wet wipes. Those things are worth their weight in gold


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## plumberpro

Pulled out a butchered chicken feathers and entrails people there had no idea how it got in the toilet


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## Plumb26

A squirrel out of a main stack.

A buddy of mine rescued a baby goose from a storm drain. 

A kids train set (4 cars total, 2 were still linked together)

A ladies diamond ring (got a nice tip)

Car keys from a main line

Cell phone

Rocks (not really retrieved but cleared none the less)

Medical gauze (I mean, so much that it looked like bob marley's hair)

Other peoples sewer cables :whistling2:


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## incarnatopnh

I pulled three syringes and a bunch of heroin baggies out of a cast stack. Landlord was there watching. The cops arrested the tenant an hour later.

I had to pull a squirrel out of the heat exchanger on an old furnace back in October too. That was fun.


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## Plumbergeek

This was at Chick fil A.








and this-








These were from the Mop sink which drains into 2" PVC indirectly?


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## LEAD INGOT

This pair of BVD's I fished out of a prison toilet last week. At least I'm getting some of my tax money back.


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## Best Darn Sewer

SewerRatz said:


> Pulled birds out of sink lines. The birds tend to make a nest on the vent stack for the sink line and get sucked in.


Rats do that in Texas. Or squirrels. They chew the vent pipe and will occasionally fall in and get stuck at the 90° at the bottom. Nasty as hell to pull those out from urinal drains. Urine covered rotting rodents....I was 18 and dry heaved for about 5 minutes. Hahaha.


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## Best Darn Sewer

These were all removed from a trailer park sewer. A really really low income trailer park. The concrete chunk was stuck in front of the small piece of 3" PVC. I used my jetter to remove it being my retriever couldn't hook it. I removed all of it thru the CO. It was between the CO and the city line. Took 4 hours. I used my retriever to get the pipe, screw driver, battery, and key. 







This is a leader from a sewer in a condo building with 8 units to a building. I have posted it before on here. It was right in the 3X2 santee picking up the closet bend. It had to have been there since construction in the early eighties. 










This was removed from a 4" CI wye below a toilet. We used the retriever from the vent to get it. We assumed that when the roof was replaced they threw it all down the vent stack. There was lead flashing, an old drill bit, and some weird stuffed animal toy looking thing all sitting right below where the toilet tied in.


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## Best Darn Sewer

Here's a video of a wedding ring I removed from a 4" CI drain that made it 9' down from the flange after being flushed.


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## stecar

I am sure they didnt complain about the price.


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## Best Darn Sewer

stecar said:


> I am sure they didnt complain about the price.


Actually, it was for a co-worker. She tipped me well. It was kinda fun.


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## budders

Lol one of those dont tell my husbin my ring got flushed


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## Best Darn Sewer

budders said:


> Lol one of those dont tell my husbin my ring got flushed


Haha. He was standing right there watching the monitor while I worked on removing it. It was an inherited ring from the husband's family and the woman hadn't had it sized for her finger yet so it was easy for it to slip off. She noticed right as she flushed the toilet that it fell and didn't use it or anything else anymore til I got there. 

It was difficult to see because the scale from the walls of the CI started to break off from my cable hitting the walls and it was piling up on the bottom of the pipe. I had to continuously run water to be able to keep the ring in sight once I finally found it in the muck. I hooked it and lost it in the scale one time. It took about 20 minutes to hook it again. The second time it swiveled further than before onto the bulb and then it was just a matter of steadily pulling back gently...and holding my mouth juuust right.


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## HSI

Today's shower drain adventure


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## love2surf927

HSI said:


> Today's shower drain adventure


Kids must have shoved those down they don't look like they would go down on their own.


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## PlumbDumber

I once had a customer call our office to get a huge lizard out of her toilet. She had tried to kill it by throwing bleach on it, but that did not do the trick. I had to put on welding gloves and grab an 18" Iguana out of a toilet before it could dive back down through the trap. I released it in the woods near our local zoo.

A few months later, one of our employees pulled a dead 3 foot Iguana out of a 3" line in an office building using a K-60. It appeared to have gotten lodged in the line & drowned. Somewhere we have pictures of "Billy the Dragon Slayer" holding up his quarry for the camera.


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## Coolcanuck

PlumbDumber said:


> A few months later, one of our employees pulled a dead 3 foot Iguana out of a 3" line in an office building using a K-60. It appeared to have gotten lodged in the line & drowned. Somewhere we have pictures of "Billy the Dragon Slayer" holding up his quarry for the camera.


Love it, shop legend now haha


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## 422 plumber

From a refinery toilet, everyone wears Nomex coveralls, do it's easy for stuff to fall out of pockets into the toilet. The brand name of these safety glasses is "Spoggles"









Sent from my iPhone using PlumbingZone


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## MACPLUMB777

Bigwrenchjosh said:


> I had the exact same thing at my neighbor ladies house. She "had no idea" what was in the toilet but when I pulled the bowl and flipped it upside down the dentures where stuck in the exit hole. I pulled them out and she was there with a bowl of bleach water. Like you said, they must be spendy.


What you have to under stand is when you are living on a fixed income of
$700 to $1,000.00 a month just barely able to buy food then yes $1,000.00
to $2,000.00 or more for new dentures is out of reach !
even the copay you have with medical or medicaid is impossible


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## HSI

love2surf927 said:


> Kids must have shoved those down they don't look like they would go down on their own.


Not only did her young daughter stuff them down the drain she also figured out how to pop the drain grate off. Lol.


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## Unclog1776

Didn't actually pull this back but was able to push it into city's 36" sewer. 











When I saw that I knew it would get interesting. After getting the line to drain I dropped camera and found this. 











Almost got it all the way out just pushing with camera until it hung up on a slightly offset joint. Had to knock it around with the auger a bit to free it up then went back to pushing. Should have recorded the entire job. I think it was about 18" long. Looks like a tent stake or something. This was at a student rental 12 unit apt building and they commonly have tents set up for their parties.


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## TheDrainGuy

Unclog1776 said:


> Didn't actually pull this back but was able to push it into city's 36" sewer. When I saw that I knew it would get interesting. After getting the line to drain I dropped camera and found this. Almost got it all the way out just pushing with camera until it hung up on a slightly offset joint. Had to knock it around with the auger a bit to free it up then went back to pushing. Should have recorded the entire job. I think it was about 18" long. Looks like a tent stake or something. This was at a student rental 12 unit apt building and they commonly have tents set up for their parties.


Looks like it was in there a long time.
Picture quality is fantastic!


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## Best Darn Sewer

TheDrainGuy said:


> Looks like it was in there a long time.
> Picture quality is fantastic!


Agreed on picture quality. What's the camera you use, Unclog?


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## Unclog1776

Mytana DCB 12 monitor


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## Best Darn Sewer

OK. That is my second choice after ridgid being I can get into 1-1/2" lines easily with the ridgid. Mytana sure seems good on durability and image.


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## Unclog1776

I had a Mytana head quit once, was still under a year old and just stopped, no picture, no LEDs. Did the whole push rod test and all that and everything indicated it was the head. Called em up and they overnighted me a brand new one no questions asked. Great service when you have to call them which I hardly ever do because you can buy anything they offer with a few clicks of a smart phone from a job site. Locator is dead on as well. I've been within a foot with my marks before on 10 ft and deeper sewer repairs.


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## Best Darn Sewer

Unclog1776 said:


> I had a Mytana head quit once, was still under a year old and just stopped, no picture, no LEDs. Did the whole push rod test and all that and everything indicated it was the head. Called em up and they overnighted me a brand new one no questions asked. Great service when you have to call them which I hardly ever do because you can buy anything they offer with a few clicks of a smart phone from a job site. Locator is dead on as well. I've been within a foot with my marks before on 10 ft and deeper sewer repairs.


Thank you. Very good to know. I think most of what makes a locater work well is the users experience with it and learning its idiosyncrasies. I use a Rycom and have gotten very precise with it. Here most of our sewers start around 2.5' to 3' deep. I know you work on city mains. I dont work on those but I have very accurately located 6' deep lines with it.


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## Unclog1776

I locate residential as well. Central Illinois we have lots of old full basements and the lines are all gravity as most pre date ejection pumps. Nothing Out of the ordinary to have an 8 foot or deeper residential main around here.


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## Drain Pro

Unclog1776 said:


> I locate residential as well. Central Illinois we have lots of old full basements and the lines are all gravity as most pre date ejection pumps. Nothing Out of the ordinary to have an 8 foot or deeper residential main around here.


Same here. As a matter of fact, 8 feet is pretty shallow in these parts.


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## Big cheez

I pulled back woody from the movie toy story, condoms of coarse, and a 2"clean out cap out of a 4"drain


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## Big cheez

My friend Larry pulled back a baby's arm...


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## budders

Holy **** an actual baby arm what do you do qhen u pull something like that out?


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## Big cheez

budders said:


> Holy **** an actual baby arm what do you do qhen u pull something like that out?


Hey called the police. Then they told him to give them an estimate to tunnel under the house so that they can cut the rest of the baby out of the drain. That was his last job at that company. There was nothing you could pay him to go in that tunnel. It was right after Christmas 2yrs ago and the old lady that called had family members over. As soon as they left she noticed the clogged drain upstairs. It turned out to be a still born and one of her granddaughters hid her pregnancy. No charges were filled. I couldn't see myself doing that either.


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## PlumberJoeOk

I did a job for a single dad whose house was all backed up. We went to side of house and unthreaded the cleanout and sewage started flowing out along with 3 or 4 condoms. He flipped out and went inside and was screaming and some kid came running outside and down the street. Glad I could assist in helping him find out his daughter was bangin the kid


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## dclarke

Condoms provide safe sex but leave so much evidence to really burn you when you flush em. Before I was a plumber I flushed em. It was a septic at my girlfriends. Luckily she had a brother and they assumed they were his. I went with it.


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## Best Darn Sewer

Big cheez said:


> My friend Larry pulled back a baby's arm...


Holy freakin hell, man!! That's just not what I needed to see first thing this morning. 'Course that's my fault for looking in this thread. Wow. I have heard tales of fetuses clogging lines but I've never seen a photo. Blechh.


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## Best Darn Sewer

dclarke said:


> Condoms provide safe sex but leave so much evidence to really burn you when you flush em. Before I was a plumber I flushed em. It was a septic at my girlfriends. Luckily she had a brother and they assumed they were his. I went with it.


Haha. I bet you did.


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## Coolcanuck

Big cheez said:


> Then they told him to give them an estimate to tunnel under the house so that they can cut the rest of the baby out of the drain. That was his last job at that company. ... I couldn't see myself doing that either.


Man, that would be tough, I don't know what I'd do with that job. Definitely need a debriefing with counselling afterwards.


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## Plumbbum0203

Big cheez said:


> My friend Larry pulled back a baby's arm...


Why was this posted? Over the top maybe a mod can remove this. You could have just told us. This sucks..


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## dclarke

The post is fine....the picture is definitely disturbing. Although with a story like that I think people would call bs without pics.


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## gear junkie

Whoa....like life that pic was heavy.


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## Tommy plumber

Plumbbum0203 said:


> Why was this posted? Over the top maybe a mod can remove this. You could have just told us. This sucks..












I'll leave it, for now. If the other moderators find it over the line, it will be removed.


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## Unclog1776

Tooth brush with a side of tampons anyone? Funny thing about this was tampons actually saved the day. I knew the tooth brush was in there but couldn't get it loose. Ended up hooking a tampon and pulling the brush out as well


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## Unclog1776

8 unit student apt building. Two rooms per unit all girl occupied


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## wyrickmech

Unclog1776 said:


> 8 unit student apt building. Two rooms per unit all girl occupied


thats got to be a record!


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## Hillside

Had this one awhile back


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## love2surf927

Unclog1776 said:


> 8 unit student apt building. Two rooms per unit all girl occupied


Reminds me of Christmas tree lights.


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## Dpeckplb

We got a call from the police last riday to pump down a sewer. Apparently there was an fight and a knife was involved. It was apparently flushed down the toilet. We got the call as my boss is the waste water superintendant for the village. After an hour of pumping down the water level, and being down in the sewer, the boss came out with out the knife. I suspect that it is still in the building sewer if there even was a knife. Would have been cool to pull the knife back.


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## SewerRatz

Just a few different things I got out of drains


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## Drain Pro

SewerRatz said:


> Just a few different things I got out of drains


That seems to be normal for restaurants. One day I'll write a book about all the items I've removed from drains.


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## SewerRatz

Roots lots of roots.


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## jc-htownplumber

Pulled this one today


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## ChrisConnor

SewerRatz said:


> Just a few different things I got out of drains


Ron, is that the Model N in the bottom picture?


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## Unclog1776

8 ping pong balls. 2" floor drain in a frat house


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## Drain Pro

Unclog1776 said:


> 8 ping pong balls. 2" floor drain in a frat house


 anyone up for beer pong?


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## Unclog1776

Drain Pro said:


> anyone up for beer pong?


It was in their party room. I'll bet they didn't go down by accident. I can see a bunch of frat boys sitting around perfecting their beer pong toss by aiming at that drain. 

I wouldn't want to play someone with that kinda accuracy!


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## Plumbtastic1

Roots. K750 snagged em right out.

from the long lost app


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## PlumbCrazyAndy

*Toilet drain clog*

I pulled back a dead bird from a toilet flange. Must have dropped down the main vent stack and tried to get out of the plumbing system from toilet. 


Andrew 
Plumb Crazy Plumbers, inc.
Palm Harbor, Fl

http://www.plumbcrazyplumbers.com/


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## Gargalaxy

I'm surprise that she still has hair.... the rubber band is free.


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## KoleckeINC

This one had weight to it. I shoulda had a fishing scale


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