We had a Plumbing Incident recently, and by “recently” I mean “It was two months ago, and that is how long it took for me to recover sufficiently to talk about it.” Here is how it happened:
• Sometimes, now that I have decided “Be like Paul” should be my marriage-balancing motto for some decisions (i.e., making decisions for myself in the same self-prioritizing way Paul makes decisions for himself), Paul goes to bed at the time HE wants to go to bed, and I DO NOT GO TO BED AT THAT TIME. This is the first significant thing that happened in this story, and it is important to note that if I had gone to bed at the time I did not want to go to bed, as I used to do routinely, things would have been unfathomably worse—and this is one of the things that plagues me when I am reliving this mentally. Anyway: Paul went to bed; I was still up, though in my jammies/slippers so I would not have to change in the dark when I DID finally go to bed.
• I went into the kitchen. The specific reason for this is lost to the fog of history. Most likely I was going to set up the coffee maker for the next morning, or wash dishes that had been left to soak, or maybe I was just turning out lights or getting a snack. The point is, I went into the kitchen, thank goodness. Perhaps I have mentioned we have a half-bath in the kitchen? It seems like very poor placement, but this house is 200 years old and has been through multiple remodels including ADDING ANY BATHROOMS AT ALL, so we extend mercy for awkward design. One thing about this half-bath is it sometimes BURBLES alarmingly: the toilet will suddenly make loud glupping sounds. We have lived here for over three years and this happens regularly without incident, and we have become accustomed to it. As I went into the kitchen, I heard it burbling/glupping. No big deal.
• Except—weirdly, the kitchen sink was ALSO burbling/glupping. This had never happened before. I was intrigued, and concerned, though not yet ANYWHERE NEAR as concerned as I should have been. This part plays out in my memory as if in a movie: there is Swistle, in the kitchen, in her jammies/slippers late at night, hearing the sounds! She tilts her head to one side: “Huh!,” she thinks! Movie-viewers clap hands over mouths, knowing the horror part of the movie must surely be imminent.
• Burbling/glupping CONTINUED, which is, again, NOT typical. I looked at the kitchen sink, which did not enlighten me. So I went to look at the half-bath toilet. AS I LOOKED AT IT, the clear water in the bowl was replaced by a surge of NOT-AT-ALL-CLEAR WATER COMING UP FROM THE DEPTHS OF PRESUMABLY HELL. The hell-water in the bowl CONTINUED TO RISE and then BEGAN TO OVERFLOW THE BOWL. This is all as I was standing there in my jammies and slippers, past my usual bedtime.
• My one and only idea was to use the toilet plunger. I did that for, I don’t know, 10 seconds? before it was just abundantly clear that that it was doing NOTHING, and that plunger-related issues were not involved in whatever was happening. I took the bath towel we use as a hand towel in that bathroom, and I threw it on the floor to help sop things up. I grabbed another bath towel we keep downstairs and threw it on the floor too.
• This is when I went up to get Paul, as well as more towels. I don’t know about YOUR wedding vows, but mine included an absolute unconditional rider about plumbing emergencies. But also: at that point I would have awakened ANY HOUSEHOLD ADULT. Paul was completely asleep, and none of us would have wanted to be awakened the way I awakened him: “Paul. PAUL. I am so sorry to wake you, but the downstairs toilet is backing up all over the floor.” He startled and yelped and floundered and soon was standing in the third bathroom saying “I don’t know what to do,” just as I had recently been. Meanwhile I had gathered huge armloads of bath towels and was throwing them onto the bathroom floor, like a little Dutch girl plugging the dam.
• I wondered aloud if “turning off the water” would help at all, which, sort of, I guess, and Paul did switch off the water—but when I made that suggestion, I remembered that when I’d gone up to get Paul, I’d heard a child in the shower upstairs. I went racing back upstairs and told that child there was a weird plumbing emergency and that they should stop the shower even if they were coated in soap and shampoo. This turned out to be the key: it was the water from that shower that was (1) failing to drain and (2) therefore backing up in the downstairs toilet. So at the VERY LEAST, water STOPPED coming up out of the toilet. And I got more towels while I was upstairs, and put them on the bathroom floor to keep the tides from getting out of the bathroom / to the kitchen.
• This is around the time I suggested Paul CALL AN EMERGENCY PLUMBER. Have I mentioned this was on a Saturday night at around 10:30/11:00? It was. He called our usual plumber, a 24-hour number, but our usual plumber said they don’t do this kind of plumbing, and gave us another number. Paul called that number. They said all their emergency technicians were already booked throughout the night, and they could not send anyone out until the next day sometime. This is when I truly gave in to despair.
• We decided there was nothing more to do and that we should go to bed and leave things as they were: water off, toilet filled to the brim with the unthinkable, towels covering the floor and soaking up the damage. We got several bottles of water from emergency storage and put them in the bathrooms/kitchen for drinking and hand-washing; we put bottles of hand sanitizer by every sink. We went to bed. Paul went immediately to sleep. I lay awake—appalled, horrified, despairing, wide-eyed in the dark, sick to my core.
• Eventually I realized I could not leave the situation as it was: sewage sinking at that moment into the trim along the edges of the wall, perhaps infiltrating itself in some way into the floor tiles, HELD in fact against the wall/trim/floor as if by some sort of monstrous towel-poultice. I got up. I evaluated the towels and decided I would not try to save them from this particular disaster, would not subject either me or my washing machine to these miseries. I put on disposable gloves. I got two giant heavy-duty trash bags, putting one inside the other. I gathered up all the disgusting towels and put them into the doubled bag; with hindsight, I should have used at least two sets of doubled bags, because the resulting bag of sodden towels was so heavy I could only DRAG it, with significant effort, to its destination, which was OUT INTO THE FROZEN NIGHT.
• I got a roll of paper towels and the bottle of Clorox Clean-Up bleachy spray. I mentally kissed my pajamas goodbye. I sprayed THE LIVING HELL out of that bathroom floor and everything six inches up from it. I cleaned it with the paper towels, put the used paper towels into another trash bag; sprayed THE LIVING HELL right back out of everything again, cleaned it with paper towels again; A THIRD TIME, I sprayed living hell etc. cleaned with paper towels etc. The inside of my nose was filled with the scents of sewage and bleach. I felt coated in both. The entire downstairs REEKED of both.
• Keep in mind that THE WATER WAS OFF AND WE COULD NOT TURN IT ON without overflowing the toilet which was still filled to the utmost brim with hell-water. I could not wash my hands in any sort of normal way. I took off and threw away the gloves, then took one of the gallons of bottled water and used it to wash my hands as best I could, alternating wash/rinses with doses of hand sanitizer. This was dismal. It was DISMAL. I did not feel remotely clean. Meanwhile, bleach stains had appeared on my pajamas, including my “Nevertheless she persisted” Elizabeth Warren shirt, and it is hard to imagine anything more appropriate/dismal.
• I went to bed, feeling absolutely unclean and appalled and horrified and despairing and sick to my very core etc. I felt filthy and reeking; my throat/nose felt burned by bleach but I was glad for it, because bleach-burn felt better than sewage-reek. I lay awake for quite awhile. I felt, ACUTELY, what a thin membrane separates us from absolute primitive savagery. We are all one single modern-day-plumbing emergency away from dying of typhoid, it seemed to me at that time.
• In the morning I woke up, feeling about the same. We discussed with the children how no one should use water or flush toilets. We brought up more gallons of the bottled water I’d purchased in November 2016, or perhaps it was the additional bottled water I’d purchased in January 2021. Who can say. Sure was good to have it, though. I spent the entire morning feeling sick/despairing, unable to concentrate on anything else, noticing the thin membrane, etc.
• At around 11:00 a.m., and remember this was a Sunday so this is not going to be inexpensive, not that that was even in my TOP FIVE concerns, the plumber called to say he was on his way. Actually it was a plumbing technician, because the plumber was still not available. He arrived near noon, and I have never been as glad to see anyone in my entire life, and I truly mean that. I am worried you will think that is hyperbole, but I was not as glad to see my own children at birth as I was to see this plumbing technician. Oh, actually, now that I’ve given it some thought: when Elizabeth was about 8 years old, I lost her in a store, and I lost her for so long, I had reached the point of thinking in a leaden way, “This is how it actually seriously happens for some people: they do what I am doing now, looking for their child and feeling increasingly panicky but also as if they are being a little silly to be so panicky, but then it turns out their child actually really was taken, because that sometimes DOES ACTUALLY HAPPEN FOR REAL, and they never see their child again, and that is their Real Actual Life”—and then I saw her, and I was gladder to see her than I was to see the plumbing technician, but that is the only example I can think of where I was gladder. The plumbing technician spent half an hour in our midst, and there were some loud hammering sounds, followed by some loud/vibrating drilling sounds, and afterward he said there had been some “light roots” in the line, and he removed the light roots; and then he flushed the horror toilet and the horror-toilet contents went down successfully and the water level in that toilet returned to normal; and then he instructed us to try flushing the upstairs toilet, which was by this time ALSO a horror toilet, and we did, and it worked; and then he charged us the incredible bargain price of $500 and said he was only a technician but Jacques the plumber would call us on Monday to set up a more extensive evaluation, and we did not start a new religion in his honor but absolutely would have if asked.
• I cleaned all the toilets, two horror and one relatively normal, weeping with an intense combination of gratitude and resentment and regret for all my life choices: that I would be in this house with these plumbing issues, that I would be in a marriage where I would be in sole charge of horror-toilet-cleaning. I took the sheets off the bed. I started a load of laundry on Extra Hot water, including the sheets and my pajamas from the night before. Then I took a shower that was so long, with water so hot, I probably did lasting permanent damage to my skin. I put new sheets on the bed.
• Jacques the plumber did not call. This has been our experience with plumbers/electricians/landscapers/etc. They are very in-demand. They are hard to get. They do not call.
• I continued to lie awake, not EVERY night but it was a fairly common theme on the nights when I WAS awake, thinking about what had happened. Again and again in my mind I saw the way I’d stood in my pajamas and watched the revolting water surging up into the toilet’s clear water in a horrifying cloud, and then overflowing into our house. Again and again, I thought about how if I had gone to bed at the same time as Paul, that horrifying-cloud water would have kept coming out of the toilet until the child’s upstairs shower was over. By the time we would have discovered it in the morning, who knows how far the damage would have gone. The kitchen. The hardwood floors. The downstairs furniture. The sunporch. Dripping down into the basement. The bottom inches of all the doors/walls. Electrical issues. Who knows how much of the downstairs would have needed to be torn out. Who knows how long we would have had to stay in a hotel while it was repaired/replaced. Who knows what our homeowner’s insurance would have said/done. And all because of “light roots”??? LIGHT ROOTS could do that??? HOW AND WHY???? I told the children not to shower after our bedtime. I bought a water sensor and put it in the downstairs bathroom; I considered buying maybe fifty more and just putting them EVERYwhere.
• Two nights ago I told Paul how I had been feeling/thinking. I told him that the short version of my thoughts was that this could NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I paused, making sure he was listening, and then repeated it: this could NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I did not care what the plumber charged. I did not care if the plumber suggested coming out annually with some sort of ridiculous expensive unnecessary scheme; I did not care if the plan involved pouring something down all the drains every day/week. I did not care if it involved expensively digging up the entire front yard. I did not care if the cost of this affected our children’s student-loan situation. This could NEVER. HAPPEN. AGAIN.
• Yesterday morning Paul called the plumber. He got an appointment for a full overview next Friday—and the only reason it’s that far away is that that’s a day Paul could arrange to be home from work. Last night while I was making dinner I said to Paul that what I wanted him to tell to the plumber is that this could NEVER. HAPPEN. AGAIN, and Paul said that he’d already explained. He said when he talked to the plumber, he said “My wife says if this ever happens again, she is leaving the house and never coming back,” and the plumber, who up until that point in the call had been laid-back and cheerful, changed tone completely and said “…UH oh.” I hope the plumber keeps that in mind.
We had roots collapse our 100 year old sewer line.
Two thumbs down, would not recommend.
The whole front yard has to be dug out and our excellent homeowners insurance policy covered none of the cost because it was “a maintenance issue”.
There are some really horrible chemicals that you can use periodically to kill the roots, and we have a preventative scope done every couple of years (shockingly similar to a colonoscopy).
That is horrifying.
My husband is Master of the Water in our household and is visiting his sick grandmother for a few days. Yesterday, the second night he was gone, I was in bed when I heard Scary Banging Water Noises from the kitchen. I did not want to go look, but as the only adult in the house, felt I had to. Oldest Child had set the dishwasher timer to start after kids had showered for the night and there was a loose cup in there. Very thoughtful of Oldest Child and a nifty was of discovering my bed is directly over the dishwasher, but the thought of banging cascading water through my first floor kept me up for awhile. After reading your story, I am thanking the Lord for the thin membrane right now.
OH. MY. GOODNESS.
This is the type of thing that even though it didn’t happen to me will absolutely keep me awake at night. And it is the type of thing that makes me wonder why I don’t rent.
I saw on twitter that you had some home insurance issues. It seems like this sort of stuff isn’t covered a lot of times by insurance, but THAT story also makes me have sympathy pains.
I live in a 100 year old house and we have had this happen THREE times! It never gets less horrifying. I am very glad we rent.
Oh my god, Swistle. You have ALL my sympathy. Plumbing can be such a nightmare! This exact sort of thing happened in a very cheap apartment I rented while in school. I was on the ground floor and the toilet and bathtub started backing up when the people upstairs used their water. The tub was filling up with sewage while the toilet overflowed. I still shudder to think of it. It was also caused by roots in the line, just like yours. Just horrifying. Luckily the apartment got a plumber out quickly (it was during the day).
They had to come re-clear the line a couple of times, I recall, so you are ABSOLUTELY right to tell Paul and this plumber that it canNOT happen again and that the lines need to be fully and adequately cleared (and whatever else they need to do) now.
I had to go get my laptop to comment on this post…husband and I have HAD ISSUES and are scarred for life…I have things to say for once!
In 1974ish, foot of water in my basement – I was 5 and I remember this. I think it happened several times before we had overhead sewers put in and then moved to a different house.
In 1980s, husband had 2 feet of water in the lower level, as a teen, while his parents were out of town. Came home to furniture floating.
In the 1990s, lots of snow in my parent’s back yard and then a giant thaw came about. I was bailing the family room and had to dig a 100-foot trough from the back yard to the front ditch so it would stop waterfalling into the house.
In the 2000s husband and I bought our first house. Lots of rain and the crawl space, with all of our extra stuff in it, filled up with water. After that, every darn thing in the lower level that we kept was put in plastic tubs.
Next house, bought my parent’s house in 2002. Pipes were fine-ish but sometimes slow. Was pregnant with my 2nd, New Year’s Eve, when lower level toilet backed up with nastiness coming up the shower. We spent a lovely evening with Javier (whose wife/girlfriend must have called him 5 times to see when he was coming home). We replaced the bathroom sometime after, changing the 90 degree turn of small pipes to two 45 degree turns and nice big pipes.
Same house – had several years of drought that cracked the foundation so water seeping into a lower-level office. Had “a guy” fix that. Re-drywalled, re-carpeted. The night before a full-family Christmas party, it leaks through the wall AGAIN. “Guy” never returns our calls. We put in drain tile in that room.
Related, other side of same level, have freeze, then thaw, then waterfall into the family room. Add drain tile to that room and mud-jack up the sinking patio.
One night in the 2000s or 2010s (can’t remember), kids are at grandma’s, I go to one friend’s wedding, husband goes to another friend’s wedding, both staying in separate hotels. Big thunderstorm overnight – I don’t sleep well and go home early the next morning. Come into the house with the sump pump freaking out and several inches of water. The backup sump pump only worked for 8 hours and then died – toys etc. all floating in the basement. Threw out lots of stuff and got new carpet again.
3 years ago, perfect storm. I “used” the toilet, turned on the shower, flushed, hopped in the shower. The toilet didn’t “clear” and the water in the toilet didn’t stop flowing. Husband was working downstairs and thought that the shower sounded a bit loud. I was out of the shower quick, noticed the river in the room, and lept out of the shower, starting to clean it all up, stark naked of course. It was raining in the bathroom below the one I was showering in.
We have a land line in our home ONLY to support the device that calls us when the power is out, water is in the basement, or it gets too hot/cold in the house. My husband has at least 2 backup pumps in the basement at all times, in case the old sump goes out. We have a yearly standing appointment with our plumber to rod out the super-long sewer pipe from the house to the city pipe. Ours is the very longest on the block.
My deepest deepest sympathy on your plumbing issues!!!
I didn’t even know what to do a while back when a single toilet overflowed from too much toilet paper our kids put in it. My husband jumped into action turning off the water valve and grabbing a bucket then scooping the water out of the toilet and dumping it into the tub. I can’t even imagine your situation! Hope it doesn’t happen again.
A few months ago, I was visiting family in a house I’d never stayed in before, and the toilet overflowed while I was the only one home. I had absolutely no idea where they kept the plunger or anything so I just kind of stood there helplessly while the bathroom flooded. Thankfully it was clean water, and it DID stop eventually, so I just cleaned it up as best I could and tossed all the towels in the washing machine. (Another good thing was that it happened in the bathroom with the tile floor and not the one with the hardwood floor, which, why on earth would anybody put a hardwood floor in a bathroom?)
Anyway, that whole incident doesn’t seem so bad now that I’ve read this. You have my sympathies, and I hope the plumber heeds your warning that it MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.
This story reminds me how woefully inept I would be in these circumstances. Thank you for walking us through what you did so we can mentally prepare for our own plumbing emergencies.
Our house is nearly 100 years old and, at our closing, our realtor (who lives in the neighborhood) highly recommended that we buy special water line insurance precisely because roots are prone to clogging the lines in our area. It’s about $100/year, and has paid for itself.
OH SWISTLE.
I read this with increasingly wider opened eyes and a feeling of horror. THANK HEAVENS YOU DIDN’T GO TO BED EARLY. I had to do a little deep breathing there.
We have a house that we are extensively renovating (i.e., adding a second floor, renovating everything) that will be our retirement home. It was my husband’s grandparents’ farm house, so it’s old. We used to just stay there in its unrenovated state whilst visiting my MIL. There were always plumbing issues – the ONE toilet in the ONE bathroom would only flush maybe a third of the time, at best. At best, Swistle. Usually after staying there for a few days, it would be more like 10% of the time, it would flush. With four people using it, all of whom eat a lot of fibre. Anyway. October 2019, we were there for Thanksgiving and preparing to leave. I was in the shower. Sewage began to SPONTANEOUSLY BACK UP INTO THE SHOWER WHILE I WAS IN IT. It’s surprising I even have feet after that incident. There was a root involved in that as well. Anyway, this is to say I FEEL YOU.
This was riveting and horrifying. A thin membrane indeed! I am hopeful that you develop a close and satisfying relationship with your plumber.
I <3 you Swistle. A++++ story telling, evoked sympathy, empathy and horror (toliet).
My family's curse is Water and Trees. I grew up in a house built in a flood zone (still not sure how anyone managed to build there, it was Poor Planning x10000) and have had more than one incident of the sump pump failing because the river down the street overflowed it's banks and was pouring into the lower level (why a house built in a SWAMP even has a lower level is also POOR PLANNING). When I was in middle school we had to evac to my grandma's because the couch was floating.
The number of Tree Incidents directly correlates to other Water Incidents as they involve Trees Falling on the House and then there was rain and leaking and wet plaster and general disaster. This happened more than once, but the worst was during Hurricane Sandy. I think part of my soul is still trapped outside my body after hearing a tree fall in the pitch dark and smashing into the deck. I thought it was coming through the roof and we were already dead.
1- I am really sorry you went through that.
2- This was A+, highly satisfying Swistle writing.
3- Horror-toilets comes secondary to my conversation this morning with my neighbor in the dog park. Nice sunny, first day of spring day and she says “So, we found a dead body yesterday.” I was both stunned and absolutely thinking (via Lemony Snicket’s “Poison for Breakfast” ) that this is a remarkably good start to any story. I was in, pound for pound!
4- BURN DOWN THE HOUSE.
Okay, wait. I need more here. What kind of body? What happened?!?
1) more on this “so we found a dead body” story
2) absolutely agree, burn down the house
Oh! You can’t just drop the line, “So, we found a dead body yesterday.” and just leave it! Details!
This happened to me in the 90s, except our cause was faulty pipes exiting from our house to the ones maintained by the city. We ended up in a class action lawsuit and we were reimbursed for the thousands of dollars we didn’t have. I’m still suspicious of toilets in the bottom floor of a house and I’ll never be the same. 🥴
Big shudder at the sewage clean up.
Being adjacent to these kinds of tree roots in the plumbing line issues (My parents had this in the line that drains their sump pump keeping the basement dry. They would get water backing up into their basement. Not easy to deal with and especially now they’re older) that the problem seems to occur periodically. Stating the obvious here: tree roots grow. So, maybe a preemptive maneuver to keep the roots at bay is in order. Annual inspection to look for such things?
*Adding omitted words.
Being adjacent to these kinds of tree roots in the plumbing line issues (My parents had this in the line that drains their sump pump keeping the basement dry. They would get water backing up into their basement. Not easy to deal with and especially now they’re older) I NOTICE that the problem seems to occur periodically
I’m so sorry you’ve had to/are having to endure this. Water is the worst enemy of peaceful living. I used to live on the 11th floor of a 12-story apartment building. My boyfriend and I almost stayed at his place that night but (luckily!) ended up at mine. Sometime in the night he got up to use the bathroom and said “I hear water running.” Woke up to find water flooding into my apartment from every opening anywhere near the ceiling — including the electrical panel (so scary!) Turns out the water tank on the roof broke. The only person who got it worse was the woman right above me. We spent that night trying to keep it contained with tons of towels and the help of some lovely across-the-hall neighbours. Yours being sewage takes it to a whole new level, but I understand the helplessness of it all. Hugs to you Swistle!
While this incident was awful and horrifying and absolutely must Never Happen Again, I really enjoyed reading about it. I would definitely buy a Swistle book. :)
I read this story with an appropriate amount of horror and concern. I want to say that first. Because, the ending made me laugh out loud. I am glad the plumber knows to fear the wrath of the wife.
On one of our early dates, my now-husband put in a load of laundry before I came over. Luckily, we hadn’t left yet when sewage began coming up through the shower drain. Also luckily, that was the only location of mess because we caught it so quickly. Now-husband made a phone call to a friend and in 20 minutes had a borrowed motorized snake. The problem was roots in the septic line, but that is also when we realized that the drain lines from the kitchen ran ever so slightly uphill. Since that time the house has had a near full renovation, and there are two septic alarms. He swears that’s when he knew he should marry me, because I didn’t run screaming from the exploding shower!
I am so sorry that happened. What a living nightmare!
The scene you described narrowly missing actually happened to a friend of mine and it was a second floor bathroom so the floor/ 1st floor ceiling (over the kitchen) had to be replaced. It was a six figure remodel where they (and their three young kids) had to move out. Insurance covered it but still a total nightmare. They described it as a “The Great Poo-nami”.
I have lived in a house with the tree root issue. The tree belonged to the city and they refused to remove it. We had a plumber come once a year, put a camera down the sewer line and remove roots. That did the trick and we lived there for about 6 years. If you have clay pipes you can replace them with plastic, but that was a lot more expensive than the yearly check/ removal of roots.
Thumbs up for prioritizing yourself. It saved the day. I’m working on doing that too.
You have spiders in a barn and now this. It’s time to buy back that other house!! Or rewind and firmly insist you’ll only move to a new build home without a barn or old
Pipes.
I’m sorry to say that new houses can have awful plumbing problems, too. My house was 15 years old when we bought it in 2014, and since then we have spent over $15,000 repairing plumbing problems which nobody actually knows how to fix. Last summer we were without working plumbing for 9 weeks (we could use water for most of that time, but had to manually pump our sewage to the city line several times a day). We have not, thankfully, had sewage backups into the house, but only because we have an alarm.
I am sorry to say that I SMILED all the way through this. Your writing is just so charming, and your stories are so relatable, even when the you write about your multiple horror toilets. I’m glad you are getting is sorted out, but I’m sorry about your Elizabeth Warren shirt.
Our new house is on septic, which is a new experience for us. We knew the tanks had been pumped out before the sale, and the system inspected. A few months ago there were a couple of damp spots in the drainage field, and some… smell… in the air. Also the alarm (which indicates non-ideal tank levels) kept going off. Hubby (bless him) adjusted the floats, and the alarm went off less often, but one day there was a puddle around the access hatch. I’ll let you imagine what kind of puddle there can be around a septic access hatch. I texted my husband to say there was a problem that would probably be expensive and I called septic places until I found a guy who was available SAME DAY because holy puddle. He saved us. It was expensive ($3k to pump out the tanks install a new pump) but now there are no puddles and no alarm. And I don’t know about you, but I think it takes some balls to name your company BOB SMITH SEPTIC SERVICES and have your name on the side of your very own poop tank truck.
We have a house with some sections of 60 year old plumbing. We have also had root issues. IME, the root issues and backup kept occurring until we had the plumbing lined bc there were breaks in the line and roots kept coming back. I was resistant to this solution for several years because it was $$$, but in retrospect I should have just had the pipes lined earlier bc once roots find a way in, that’s really the only solution.
I salute your ability to deal with the absolute plumbing horror that befell you. I have had bad plumbing experiences but nothing that sunk to this horrific level. You are a star! A star beyond stars!!
Same – our (30 year old) clay pipes were cracked and the plumber cleared them out but said the roots would grow back and cause issues again in 3-5 years. It took 18 months. Immediately re-lined the pipes with plastic and a 50 year warranty. Basically I flushed $10k down the drain.
Oh goodness, that does sound traumatizing.
Swistle! Oh my God! This is a horror story! And yes. It.Must.NEVER.Happen.Again. And if that plumber is a married man, then I’m sure he is well aware of the wrath of a woman who had to go through that twice.
Oh, God bless it. Plumbers earn every penny, no doubt!! I also have one of those water sensors, mine is by the water heater which for some INSANE reason is in the ATTIC. You did the right thing to clean it right away; I’m in Houston where we know from water damage and you don’t want any type of moisture to sit for any length of time.
But A+ storytelling! I hope someday you write a book. I just hope it’s not about how you fled the country over The Plumbing Incident in the Nighttime.
I first read this hours ago and am still filled with horror on your behalf. And am seriously considering digging up the tree we recently planted in the front yard.
This story was highly entertaining to read, but I am horrified for you, and can commiserate! We had a sewage backup issue on Christmas Eve this past year. OF COURSE it had to be Christmas Eve. Luckily my husband and I had stayed up late waiting for the kids to fall asleep so we could play Santa, and I store Christmas gifts in the basement (although on the other side of the basement from the crisis, thankfully!) so we noticed pretty much right away that the floor drain in our basement was backing up. We had to turn off all the water in the house. We called an emergency plumber and of course they couldn’t come out on Christmas Eve or on Christmas, and then as you might recall the day after Christmas this year was a Sunday, so initially they weren’t going to send anyone out that day either but thank god someone was finally able to come out late Sunday afternoon. But basically my husband spent all of Christmas Day going downstairs every couple of hours to use a shop vac to suck up dirty water that was still slowly leaking up through the drain and pump it outside. And even so by Sunday morning I was almost ready to bail and go to a hotel because downstairs smelled so awful.
Looking back, I can at least be grateful for several things that worked in my favor:
-Luckily we didn’t have any guests for Christmas this year so it was only our immediate family that had to deal with it
-The sewage didn’t get beyond our unfinished basement, and since we just moved in a few months prior to Christmas we haven’t yet accumulated a whole bunch of stuff in storage down there (and a lot of what is stored down there is Christmas decorations which of course were upstairs on display, it being Christmas)
-My husband is the Plumbing Crisis Person in our house so without complaint he handled everything, including all of the clean up, and all I had to do was worry about it and try not to let it ruin my Christmas.
-We have good insurance that covered it all. We used to live in an old house with the same issue you’re currently having of tree roots in the pipes. We had the same kind of occasionally gurgly toilet. Once every couple of years our basement shower would back up and pour into the bathroom and sometimes it made it all the way into our bedroom and it was always a nightmare. After the second time it happened we bought some insurance specifically to cover pipes and plumbing problems and as someone else above commented, it only cost about $100 a year and paid for itself time and again. We got the same type of insurance policy when we moved into our new (old) house last summer and I’m so glad we did! (Definitely look into the additional insurance. Also, there are chemicals you can pour down your toilet periodically that will help with the root issue.)
I am pausing my faint repetition of “oh no no no” to remember that you didn’t want to buy this house in the first place.
Maybe get your sewer scoped? When we sold my husband’s older house, we had to get that done as part of the sale process. The sewer line company cleaned out part of the line but also had to rebuild some of it, too. It wasn’t a plumbing company kind of problem– it was a sewer line company kind of problem.
(Our seller’s agent said he recommends getting sewer lines scoped as a matter of course during the pre-sale process. He liked not having sewer issues be a surprise that could hold up or halt a sale; I liked feeling like I was being good-faith as a seller.)
A horror story, delightfully told.
I would’ve been right there with you, mopping and strategizing and feeling gross but better.
Truly a harrowing experience, depicted for us lucky readers so vividly and with a healthy dose of charm. If you ever have to just leave and never turn back, you’re welcome to come stay with me!
I think you should leave your house, go to a very nice hotel with many snacks, and stay until Paul strips all the beds and remakes them as well as does a second deep cleaning of all bathrooms and toilets and apologizes. Husbands that nap in the living room while I’m trying clean the house enrage me. (Hence no more afternoon naps by my husband). Paul sleeping while you clean makes me want to scream. I was already cranky, and your excellent writing of the horror toilet night filled me with righteous anger on your behalf. Very edifying.
When our version of this happened it cost ten thousand dollars, we sold our house immediately, and bought a new build…. the new build is fine, the neighborhood isn’t as quaint; there are pros and cons to every situation. I miss our old house, our old mortgage, but it was a trauma and here we are.
I really feel for you and hope the plumber can get you back to a place of comfort in your own home.
so horrifying! And so well written!
I am curious about the “Be Like Paul” shift — have you told him about this change in approach — and/or individually in the bedtime decision? Did he wonder why you were no longer going to bed at the same time he does?
[absolutely no judgment; my husband and I realized long ago that we don’t sleep well in the same bed, so we have separate rooms, and I don’t think I could go back]
We didn’t have like a big sit-down talk over it, but I just started remarking cheerful things in various contexts: e.g., “No, YOU should go to bed now if you want to! Don’t wait up for me! And I will go to bed when I’m ready, rather than lying awake trying to go to bed the same time as you!”
For other things, I haven’t remarked, I’ve just started doing it. Putting on a movie in the evening if I feel like watching a movie and he doesn’t. Making the kind of cookies I’d like best, even if those aren’t his favorites or our compromise favorite. Buying a more expensive version of something I like, just as he feels free to buy himself more expensive versions of things he likes. Etc.
I LOVE THIS.
I love this too. I want to know more!
Why does doing what we want feel like an act of rebellion, when our husbands doing what THEY want certainly does not feel like rebellion to them? (This is a rhetorical question; I know exactly why, but still. WHY)
And here’s the really infuriating part – this is so engrained culturally that I do this about so very many things even when my husband for most of it does. not. think. I. should. He is a very typical white male in so many ways, but I will give him credit on this. He has looked at me with puzzlement and said “why would you do that?” on so many things. Why? Because I have absorbed the idea that wives and mothers come second to everyone else, even if I absolutely do not believe it should be that way.
My husband and I have separate bedrooms and it. is. amazing.
Same. The best. I sleep well. He sleeps well. If I can’t sleep, I can turn on a podcast or take a shower without bothering him. So great. Also (glumly) it’s fantastic if one of us gets covid – we are pre isolated. Please don’t ask how I know. :(
DITTO. It is the best. (Haven’t gotten COVID, but each time one of us gets sick, the other does NOT).
I literally sleep everywhere in the house except for with my husband. With kids when they need it (which was all the time when they were young, but almost never now), on one or the other of the two couches, in the spare room… The only constant the last few years is that I’m always within arm’s reach of my dog so I can stop her twitching and and making noises while she’s dreaming by giving her a soothing pat and a “it’s okay, good girl”. I sleep lightly, but I have the superpower of reliably being able to go to sleep within minutes, whereas if he’s woken up he never gets back to sleep. The dog has to go out at least once in the middle of the night every night and it really is no trouble for me to let her out and go right back to sleep. Plus my husband and I have different sleep needs and schedules, and he snores.
Like melissa and Liz have already said, it’s the Best!
This whole thing is terrifying, and I’m caught on one detail: this happened months ago, and Paul only followed up with the plumber this week? I’m…I’m… I can’t.
This would be the breaking point for me. I’m so glad you spoke up. I’m so angry you had to.
Dear sweet lord. I really appreciate your account of this, partly because if something like this happened I would also feel like it was the worst thing in the world, and I would feel like that was ridiculously shallow and weak of me, so it is welcome to know that I’m not alone in that. It’s also why I always give to fundraisers for clean water and sanitation – it’s unthinkable how much of the world lives without proper toilets and sewers. Also, I once lost Angus at the vegetable stand place we go to – he was playing in the little playground and then he was gone, and there was a ring of forest around and I thought someone had come out and grabbed him and taken him back into the forest, and I had the same leaden feeling, chiefly about how I was going to tell my husband I had lost our child, and then I looked INTO the little play castle, which surely he would have come out of when he heard me yelling his name hysterically, but he did not because he wanted to keep playing. Funny how clearly and viscerally that feeling comes back.
Your comment made me think this is probably a good place to mention Who Gives A Cr*p. Recycled toilet paper delivered to my door, my family likes it just fine, and 50% of profits go towards clean water and sanitation projects in places that need them. https://us.whogivesacrap.org/
This happened to us while renting an old house too! Check around outside your house, because some of our poop came up out there as well (fun times). Make sure no one in your house flushes anything other than toilet paper (no “flushable” wipes or tampons) and consider switching to toilet paper that says it’s good for septic systems (bc it dissolves better). But yeah, I think if the roots problem isn’t resolved it could just keep happening. So sorry! The part about not being able to really wash your hands was the worst!!
Oh my goodness – there are no words for how gross this must have been. We have had 3 floods but all were clean water from the water line to the fridge. Two were caught fast, the third happened while we were away so a lot of damage to the basement and main floor, but thankfully insurance covered it. We got rid of the fridge water line and now have an Reverse osmosis under the sink – much safer. I feel your pain but wow so grateful that you were still up and heard it!! We own investment properties and tenants have had the sewage backup issue a couple of times. It was always caused by them flushing wipes etc – nothing should go down the toilet except toilet paper!! One tenant said “it was the baby’s fault”. Ya ok – he can help pay for it!!
No no—LONG AGO I saw a VERY PERSUASIVE article about how “flushable wipes” are IN NO WAY FLUSHABLE, so we do not HAVE those let alone flush those, nor tampons, and we have the septic-friendly toilet paper even though we have city water/sewer, so I feel we are ABOUT AS BLAMELESS AS POSSIBLE in this incident!
*Slow clap* That retelling was just brilliant, Swistle! I am so sorry for the horror, but your writing is fantastic! In my family we have a saying: “Good stories never come from happy times.” That is a hell of a story.
Many years ago, roots were the problem in our sewer lines, too. When raw sewage was slowly flooding our (thankfully unfinished) basement floor, I was standing over the floor drain with a plunger, frantically plunging while my husband – an incredibly intelligent human being – stood there like a robot, processing the situation in his computer brain. I wanted to KILL him. I finally roared, “DO SOMETHING.” He refocused his eyes and said, “I don’t think what you’re doing is going to help.”
I would like to record to show that I did not kill him.
Clearly the grossest part of this is the sewage that had to be dealt with, but I’m almost equally horrified that you were the one up in the middle of the night cleaning it all up while Paul just… went back to sleep.
My husband – as you know if you’ve read my past comments – is far from perfect. Why, just this morning he got super-mad when I didn’t subscribe to his theory of our standup freezer spontaneously popping open when I found it ajar in the basement and a bunch of stuff no longer frozen, and said accusingly that I discounted the idea because heaven forbid I give any idea of his any consideration (no, I think he was wrong because I found a poorly-placed container wedging it open… deeeep breaths….). But I am 95% certain he’d have been up cleaning with me in the situation you describe.
Ah yes, the “x doesn’t work right” theory! My partner tried that one the SECOND time he left the door from the house to the garage OPEN. I just shrugged and said, “huh, the doors work fine for me.” THEN he conceded that when he has his hands full, maybe he isn’t checking to make sure the door closes behind him. HUH. YA THINK?
Checking in. Is it today that the plumber is coming or a week from today?
It’s today, and he’s been here for hours, and it is Bad News in that this appears to be an excavator-and-total-pipe-replacement situation, but Good News in that we did not have a much worse incident—and that we did not wait for the NEXT inevitable incident.
Oh, I’m so glad for an update! I was planning to check in later also.
And, while I’m not sure exactly where you live, I imagine this is better news now that the snow is melting and the ground is thawing than it would have been a couple of months ago when potentially your yard was frozen under a pile of snow.
$1900 for today’s pipe-mapping, but the excavation/replacement is too big a job for this place (despite them having an excavator and doing pipe-replacements) so we will be calling our FOURTH plumber on this.
Ugh. Sorry Swistle.
OH NO. That’s not good.
Thank you so much for the update! And I am so sorry about the Bad News but so happy about the Good News. XOXOXOX
I am so sorry for your trauma, this is just a nightmare. But your writing is so spectacular and this bit
“I have never been as glad to see anyone in my entire life, and I truly mean that. I am worried you will think that is hyperbole, but I was not as glad to see my own children at birth as I was to see this plumbing technician. “
…made me scream-laugh SO HARD my 9yo demanded I explain and now he and I are both in hysterics 😂
Hey Swistle, is it possible for you to talk to a therapist about this event? I don’t mean that as a joke, it’s just that the laying awake at night still thinking about this and how it could have gone differently, definitely sounds like you haven’t processed this event yet. And it sucks that it’s still affecting you today!
This sounds like a perfect incident for EMDR. It’s basically spot remover for your brain and it’s QUICK.
I too have wondered how it would be to sleep separately. I tend to take forever to fall asleep whereas my husband is usually out like a light. On the days he isn’t it’s even harder for me to sleep. I move around so much getting comfortable that I start worrying that I’m bothering him, although he never comments. Anyways, now and then if I’m sick I’ll sleep elsewhere and I always sleep great. Unfortunately we don’t have an extra room for another bed.
It is the absolute best. THE BEST.