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Plumbing issues, not a pleasant start to the weekend.

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nboy22

nboy22

Diamond Member
Hey guys,

So a little rant here. My girlfriend and I are currently renting a condo and the price is right, but the plumbing issues are stressing me out. On new years our bathroom started flooding out of nowhere. We had lived at this place for 8 months or so before the issue started happening, so the issue was new to us. Just as a note, the condo is a single level and is attached to other single level condos. The problem was seemingly fixed after about a week on new years, but has returned today after seemingly being fixed for a month and a half.

The plumbers were called out on new years night and for the next consecutive 5 days as the issues kept happening. Every single day around 7 PM, the plumbing on the bottom of the toilet seal as well as the tub would back up, causing all our bathroom rugs to get nasty and wet with sewage water (which was surprisingly clean for being sewage water). My theory is that everyone else was doing their things (showers, baths, laundry, dishes, etc) and that it was peak usage times causing the backups. The plumbing company pulled out a couple of tampons on different days that they were out here snaking the lines. They eventually got a pipe camera out here because the issue didn't stop and checked the lines and found something. The communication just kinda stopped with them and they didn't really say what they found. They ended up replacing some section of large piping towards the street. I would say the pipe was red in color and probably 6-8 inches in diameter when I looked in the hole they dug up next to the street. As for the length of it that they replaced, I don't know since I was at work while they were replacing it.

It seems that we are the last in line for drainage, and that there are 4 other condos that could be causing the issues. I am really unsure of what to do at this point because the rental price is good on the condo, yet dealing with the stress of having our only bathroom backing up quite frequently is getting hard to deal with. I am on the verge of just saying screw it and buying a house as I have just paid off my car and have no other debts other than ~$3k in credit card debt which will only take me till the end of May to pay off completely. The problem is I really didn't want to take FHA loan and wanted to go conventional, but can't really afford conventional payments unless I had a 20% down payment.

I'm just looking for some advice and someone to calm my nerves during this situation and for me to not do anything irrational.
 
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nboy22 said:
..renting...
Click to expand...


Notify your landlord. While you appreciate the plumber's efforts to date, this has been going on for over 3 months and something must be done.
Document everything.
Contact your local renter's rights organization.
 
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"... girlfriend ..."

Hmmm. Yeah, gonna need a pic to determine best course of action for your situation here.
 
twinrider1 said:
Notify your landlord.
Click to expand...

I have, and it is basically a "call the HOA" scenario. I call the HOA and they send the plumber out. No money out of my pocket, but the issues seem to persist somewhat frequently. For our bathroom to be backing up every 1.5 months must mean something that needs to be replaced isn't getting replaced, or that someone is doing something terrible to the drainage plumbing.
 
Sounds to me like the true problem has been found and repaired. A collapsed section of drain pipe could definitely cause a backup. It's been taken care of.

When they found blockages when snaking the lines they assumed they had found the problem. When it occurred again, they did the camera deal and found the true problem. It's been corrected. You're all set now.
 
nboy22 said:
I have, and it is basically a "call the HOA" scenario. I call the HOA and they send the plumber out. No money out of my pocket, but the issues seem to persist somewhat frequently. For our bathroom to be backing up every 1.5 months must mean something that needs to be replaced isn't getting replaced, or that someone is doing something terrible to the drainage plumbing.
Click to expand...

Your landlord is just passing the buck. While the HOA may be responsible to the owner for the repairs, the landlord is responsible to YOU to maintain a safe, defect-free place to live. (you don't tell us where you live, so I can't pull up the appropriate state regs on rentals) HOWEVER, I'd think about asking the landlord to reimburse you for some/all the costs of cleaning...including laundering/replacing your carpets, towels used to clean up the mess, etc.
Also, depending on how bad the floods were, water COULD have seeped into the walls...where it might start growing mold. That's something that should be inspected as well.



boomerang said:
Sounds to me like the true problem has been found and repaired. A collapsed section of drain pipe could definitely cause a backup. It's been taken care of.

When they found blockages when snaking the lines they assumed they had found the problem. When it occurred again, they did the camera deal and found the true problem. It's been corrected. You're all set now.
Click to expand...

Most likely, this.


Oh...and buying a house out of desperation is usually a bad idea. While I LIKE the idea of home ownership, remember, when something breaks in YOUR house...YOU have to pay to have them fixed/fix them yourself.
Buying out of desperation could lead you to buy a place that's less than desirable in the long run...just food for thought.
 
Thanks for the comments everyone.

I found out this morning that when the plumbers dug up that section of pipe near the street all they did was put an access point in so they could snake it from there. The plumber was actually out here yesterday before we found out about our issue because now the problem happened in two of my neighbor's places as well. He snaked out more tampons and crap once again. My theory now is that one of those two places contains women that are flushing their tampons and clogging it up. I haven't talked with the farthest one, but I have with the one that is attached directly to our building and she said she hasn't flushed anything like that. Either way I'm happy it started happening in their places too so that they can learn to stop throwing those things down the toilet.

for BoomerD, I live in Tempe, AZ
 
Regardless of the other problems, the wax seal at the base of the toilet is defective/damaged and needs to be replaced if you are seeing any leakage there.

If the toilet is properly installed and the seal intact, you should never see leakage at floor level on a toilet, it should overflow at the seat level only.
 
Micrornd said:
Regardless of the other problems, the wax seal at the base of the toilet is defective/damaged and needs to be replaced if you are seeing any leakage there.

If the toilet is properly installed and the seal intact, you should never see leakage at floor level on a toilet, it should overflow at the seat level only.
Click to expand...

Good to know, I was mulling it over in my head today and I had the same thought occur. I may go get a new wax ring and install it just for any future issues we may have.
 
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