Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/28/plungers-are-disgusting-so-the.html
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Some clogs can be cleared with increased head pressure, i.e. slowly filling the toilet bowl more and more and gently tapping on the side of the toilet trap with something non-shattery, like say, your shoed foot. This is useful in a hypothetical situation, where you are at someone else’s house, and the toilet clogged though no fault of your own, and holy shit, there is no plunger in the bathroom and now you are trapped in there forever.
This light percussion along with the greater water weight can cause many clogs to break loose. However, if the toilet is already full and overflowing, first step is to cut the water supply off to the toilet, generally found under the toilet tank on the left side. Spin this valve clockwise to close. If you are going to plunge or snake a toilet that is full to the brim, you should remove some of the water first, as it will be displaced onto the floor, as you attempt to clear the breach.
Evacuate with Safety and Style 
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Put your hand and arm inside a bin liner, grit your teeth, reach in and pull. Job done.
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Effective, if unpleasant, but it won’t help with clogs farther in ^^’ .
I don’t think I’ll end up preferring to spear clogs, rather than using a good plunger (with the flange, so it seals properly).
Edit -> Thanks for that tip, by the way; I think we’ve all been there, and I’d never have thought of it.
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I’m more of a Toiletcutlass pooper.
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TOILETWREKTANGLE!
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Why not poopknife?
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And all this time I thought the cumbox was the worst thing I had seen on reddit.
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Also known as “The Dumb and Dumber”
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Toilet design seems to play a role here as well. In the last place I lived, the low-flush toilet would need plunging all the time. In the current house, the dual-flush toilets we have almost never need plunging.
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True. The down side is that if it doesn’t clear the clog, now the toilet is full and at risk of over flowing.
It’s usually my first step, and it is only occasionally a mistake. But when it is, you get a serious oh fuck moment.
It’s fine if you keep the plunger nearby, the extra water seems to help it do it’s job. But if you aren’t expecting it or there is no plunger…
The newer water efficient toilets seem to clog less often than the old fashioned terlits, and they clear clogs easier. The Fox News set seems to be a little obsessed with how environmentalism “ruined” toilets. But I find them to be actively better these days.
It’s like the light bulb thing. You’d be surprised how much money my electrician uncle makes collecting up old incandescents in weird formats. He gets a customer who’s on a nut job rant about light bulbs and he’s all, “We can do it, but it’ll be pricey”.
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Never bring a toiletsaber to a lightsaber fight.
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Does it double for one of things you can use to unlock car door locks if you lock your keys in the car?
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I’ve got an ancient low-flow toilet in the front bathroom which clogs probably 1 in 10 times, and a less ancient (but still annoying) low-flow one in the back bathroom which clogs 1 in 20 times.
I can unclog both of them with a plunger in less than 20 seconds most of the time. For the really hard jobs (maybe once a year) I’ve got a toilet snake in the garage.
The secret to good plunging is twofold:
First, understand how the tank mechanism works; you’ll want to let in enough water to give your plunger some purchase, without actually emptying the entire contents of the tank resulting in the worst case scenario (if worse comes to worst you can always reach in the tank and close the flapper valve manually. The water in the tank is fresh and hopefully not contaminated so you can splash around in there all you need to.)
I’ve reached a point where I can jingle the flush lever w/o removing the tank lid and let in just enough water.
Second, you’ll wish to plunge with a forceful gait whose tempo dampens instead of reinforces the natural frequency of the bowl’s sloshing about. This is to prevent the bowl’s contents from splashing all over you and the surroundings.
Finally a tip: if there’s a poo log or TP wad halfway wedged in the bowl’s exit portal, you can sometimes break it up with the edge of the plunger, then admit a bowl’s worth of water and see if that clears the clog. Use the plunger to prevent large TB wads and mookie sticks from re-wedging in the exit portal until you’ve got a well flowing water spiral established.
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Couldn’t I just use that little brass key thing that opens doors?
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My 2 cents:
Let the clog sit for an hour and flush again. Water will break down most clogs with a short bit of time.
Use single ply toilet paper, it dissolves much better.
3rd cent: Straightened and curved coat hangers are much cheaper than toilet sabers and do much the same thing, with the same advantages over a plunger.
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Fecal foil.
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But this will be obsolete when bbs introduces the model with the built in infrared camera.
You know, this is all just newfangled nonsense. Every family should have their old tried-and-true poop knife on a hook by the toilet.
