Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Service surveyed its 5,400 field technicians throughout North America to determine the strangest items pulled from homeowners' pipes and toilets in 2006:

1. Shaving the pipes (Toronto, Ont., Canada): Roto-Rooter’s Adam Kolnik tried to clear a blockage in a toilet, but when his cable went through the drain, the entire toilet began vibrating. The object turned out to be an electric razor, which the customer believes was knocked into the toilet by his cat. Apparently, the cable bumped the razor’s power switch inside the pipe and turned it on.

2. Music from the deep (Youngstown, Ohio): After several minutes trying to unclog a toilet, plumber Sam Perry pulled back an expensive MP3 music player that had lodged in the toilet’s trap. The customer’s teenage son was angry with his parents so he purposefully flushed the MP3 player that had been a gift from them.

3. Masking the problem (Minneapolis): Technician Jeff Karl was called to fix a clogged toilet following a big Halloween party. He worked for several minutes to determine what was causing the clog before finally dislodging a Groucho Marx mask from deep inside the toilet.

4. Diamond in the rough (Windsor, Ont., Canada): A frantic customer called Roto-Rooter to say that she accidentally flushed her diamond engagement ring down the toilet. Using a fiber optic camera, Roto-Rooter’s Wayne Seguin located the ring about six feet down the pipe from the base of the toilet. Hooking it and pulling it back took real skill.

5. Foaming at the mouth (Soldotna, Alaska): A Roto-Rooter plumber recovered a full aerosol can of foam insulation from a home’s main sewer line. It is unknown how the can got into the drainage system, but it could’ve been put there when the home was constructed.

Links

• Roto-Rooter Inc.