Sevenfeet
New Member
I haven't been in these parts for a few years, but for those who might remember, I have a special needs boy (now 14) who over his life has taken his OCD to some interesting extremes, including the weird obsession of flushing foreign objects down the toilets. What began with his little Thomas the Tank Engine toys when he was about 4 years old then morphed to other things. That's when we decided to invest in Toto toilets to replace the aging builder toilets in our house (3 in all).
The first one was the guest bedroom toilet on our ground floor...since it's the only toilet on the main floor, it sees a lot of action. We decided to get a Ultramax II for this one, bought through a local dealer here in Nashville. The biggest issue we ever had with it was my son's toothbrush obsession he had (he always wants a plastic clutch object in his possession, usually bumpy or with buttons). So combined with his toilet flushing obsession, a toothbrush got wedged up in the Ultramax II which required the plumber taking the toilet off the floor, putting a scope in it and finally managing to push the offending toothbrush out.
The kid's bathroom toilet was an easy target for my son early on and finally it was stopped up for good with toys and since the kids were young, we didn't replace the unit for over a year before finally getting an Eco Drake. He tried to jam that once to no avail and that toilet has been good so far. By the way, one plumbing debacle we had was that he had disposed of so many small toys down the Totos that they got caught in the sewer system near the clean pipe outside the house....backing things up predictably (and horribly). The solution was to dig the pipe out of the ground and replace it. I still wince at writing that check.
The most recent Toto purchase was the master bathroom toilet, and while I was hoping to hold out for something really interesting in terms of style, we decided to get another Drake, this time a Drake II. The previous Kohler toilet (the best of the original toilets) had many scraped with foreign flushed objects but managed to survive until retirement. The Drake II had been great...until last Saturday.
While the rest of the family was downstairs playing Monopoly, my son had gotten ahold of my wife's wireless mouse from her Microsoft Surface and proceeded to see if it would flush in the Drake II. It got wedged in there and a snake I keep didn't help (it probably made the situation worse). Plumbers were called today and they couldn't get the thing released either due to the weird shape and semi flexible design of the mouse....it just wedged and wouldn't let go.
Finally they gave up and I called Supply.com to see if they could just sell me the Drake II bowl and not the entire unit. They said yes so hopefully the new piece will arrive in a couple of days on a short drive from north Georgia. So my son has cost me another several hundred dollars (parts and labor). I love him dearly but I really wish he's stop this. I thought he'd grown out of it....but I was clearly wrong. And we did destroy the Drake II bowl just to verify that it was indeed the missing mouse (it was) and nothing else was in there (it wasn't).
Also, the Toilet Gods must have clearly been angry at me since the fill valve for the Ultramax II chose to fail on the same weekend. Thanks to the posts from Terry and others, I went to Home Depot this morning, got a Korky replacement unit and had the toilet up and running again in less than an hour. Thanks guys.
The first one was the guest bedroom toilet on our ground floor...since it's the only toilet on the main floor, it sees a lot of action. We decided to get a Ultramax II for this one, bought through a local dealer here in Nashville. The biggest issue we ever had with it was my son's toothbrush obsession he had (he always wants a plastic clutch object in his possession, usually bumpy or with buttons). So combined with his toilet flushing obsession, a toothbrush got wedged up in the Ultramax II which required the plumber taking the toilet off the floor, putting a scope in it and finally managing to push the offending toothbrush out.
The kid's bathroom toilet was an easy target for my son early on and finally it was stopped up for good with toys and since the kids were young, we didn't replace the unit for over a year before finally getting an Eco Drake. He tried to jam that once to no avail and that toilet has been good so far. By the way, one plumbing debacle we had was that he had disposed of so many small toys down the Totos that they got caught in the sewer system near the clean pipe outside the house....backing things up predictably (and horribly). The solution was to dig the pipe out of the ground and replace it. I still wince at writing that check.
The most recent Toto purchase was the master bathroom toilet, and while I was hoping to hold out for something really interesting in terms of style, we decided to get another Drake, this time a Drake II. The previous Kohler toilet (the best of the original toilets) had many scraped with foreign flushed objects but managed to survive until retirement. The Drake II had been great...until last Saturday.
While the rest of the family was downstairs playing Monopoly, my son had gotten ahold of my wife's wireless mouse from her Microsoft Surface and proceeded to see if it would flush in the Drake II. It got wedged in there and a snake I keep didn't help (it probably made the situation worse). Plumbers were called today and they couldn't get the thing released either due to the weird shape and semi flexible design of the mouse....it just wedged and wouldn't let go.
Finally they gave up and I called Supply.com to see if they could just sell me the Drake II bowl and not the entire unit. They said yes so hopefully the new piece will arrive in a couple of days on a short drive from north Georgia. So my son has cost me another several hundred dollars (parts and labor). I love him dearly but I really wish he's stop this. I thought he'd grown out of it....but I was clearly wrong. And we did destroy the Drake II bowl just to verify that it was indeed the missing mouse (it was) and nothing else was in there (it wasn't).
Also, the Toilet Gods must have clearly been angry at me since the fill valve for the Ultramax II chose to fail on the same weekend. Thanks to the posts from Terry and others, I went to Home Depot this morning, got a Korky replacement unit and had the toilet up and running again in less than an hour. Thanks guys.
