My apartment in San Luis Obispo is student housing, which means it's an illegal studio tacked onto a regular bungalow and rented out at rates which are ridiculously unaffordable if you have to work in a rural town like this. Being an illegally constructed apartment, it has certain benefits (it is invisible from the street) and certain drawbacks (no separate utilities from the main house, which is also rented out). One of those drawbacks is that the plumbing is nowhere near code.
So the rules are this: every few weeks, the toilet gets plugged up, and I spend a day or less thinking I can just add water to the bowl regularly and clear the clog. It teases me by making weird gurgling noises, but eventually I break down and plunge it, whereupon it clears immediately and with very little effort.
It got kind of funny on Friday, and I didn't deal with it. So when I got back tonight, I gave in and just plunged it right away, because I'd been driving for hours and required its services. And it hasn't unplugged. I plunged it with all my might, harder than I plunged it the day I had to climb on the roof with the help of the girls up front and dislodge something from the vent. And it is draining, but only very slowly. All is not lost -- I have a studio only five minutes away from here with an adequate toilet -- but it's awfully inconvenient to have to go to school to use the bathroom.
If it will not plunge clear tomorrow morning, I will be calling a plumber. I hope that this is something like a $50 service call, rather than something that requires fixing the fact that the plumbing lacks adequate slope to prevent plugs like this, which would probably entail ripping the crap out of the kitchen floor and leaving me without a bathroom at all. But with any luck, the toilet will recover its senses and start gurgling any moment now, indicating its willingness to give in.
