Cell phone flushed down toilet

April 8, 2007 9:06 AM

Someone flushed a cell phone down our toilet. Advice?

I found this, which doesn't seem very promising. Curious if anyone has other DIY-type ideas before we call a plumber (and hopefully stick the poor sot with the bill).

posted by danb to Home & Garden (11 answers total)

Is it clogged? If the phone was small it may just go right through your pipes to the street lines.
posted by lee at 9:31 AM on April 8, 2007

Call a plumber and charge it to her. Otherwise, you may damage the line or the porcelain, which would be hard to make her pay for. Worse yet, a problem may not arise for a week or several months and you'll have a harder time proving its related so you can go after her for the cost.

If you're very careful, you might be able to use a coat hanger to pull it back if it just slipped under the hole and has not gone down. That's how my we got my keys out when our son threw them from across the room when the toilet had just flushed. (Yes, we will enroll him in baseball.)
posted by acoutu at 9:38 AM on April 8, 2007

Response by poster: lee: Yep, it's clogged. No luck trying to force it down with a plunger.

acoutu: Thanks for the idea. We'll try the coat hanger.

meehawl: Yeah, I found that thread, but it's actually not what I asked. Thanks, though.
posted by danb at 10:30 AM on April 8, 2007

The out hole of a toilet is generally pretty small (I have an older toilet that had a hairbrush in it, the outlet on it is probably the size of a soda can bottom, but lozenge-shaped and the path from the bowl to there is sort of speed-bump-ish - not conducive to the passage of a cell phone). If you'll google how to replace a wax ring, you'll find ample instructions for unbolting and removing the toilet, and you should be able to pop the phone back up into the bowl from underneath.

Before that, though, do you have any tongs? Might give you a better grip.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:57 AM on April 8, 2007

We had a visitor once and he lost a lens cap down the toilet (don't ask) and it was a silent nightmare for 2 months since the toilet would overflow from time to time when conditions were 'right'

We paid the plumber, he came over, lens cap came out.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 12:25 PM on April 8, 2007

Rubber glove and stick your hand down it
posted by A189Nut at 12:38 PM on April 8, 2007

We removed an electric razor cap by taking the toilet outside and shoving a garden house up the bottom and turning it on full blast.
posted by djb at 12:42 PM on April 8, 2007

As a cheap fix for the phone, soak it in distilled water.
posted by acro at 1:05 PM on April 8, 2007

... it worked with diet coke and a digital camera.
posted by acro at 1:07 PM on April 8, 2007

my girlfriend flushed her cell phone down my toilet a couple months ago. i briefly looked things up on the internet about removing toilets, etc... then she insisted i call a plumber.

they came an hour or two later and snaked the toilet (i assume that's what it was). took him 20 minutes at most, cost us $85, and was worth it to avoid the hassle.

(ps - she paid the bill, not me)
posted by noloveforned at 1:49 PM on April 8, 2007

pps - snaking the toilet completely mutilated the phone and it didn't work... hope the contract is nearly up!
posted by noloveforned at 1:49 PM on April 8, 2007