Rental Maintenance: Toilets

You might have read our last blog about sinks and disposals. This week we’re going to cover the restroom and toilets. This was written with Jay LaBrie.

Property Management isn’t glamorous. If you’ve spent even just a day working on rental maintenance, you know it’s not always pretty. Sometimes, we have to deal with backed-up toilets. As part of our Rental Maintenance series we’ve started, this information will hopefully prevent issues and crises. We’re looking to find those pain points, like clogged sinks, and make them a little less dramatic.

Flushing the wrong things down the toilet is another pain point between landlords and tenants that’s easily preventable. It can also get extremely costly.

Use this as a guide to avoid costly plumber trips and embarrassing back-ups.

The basics here are: If it will clog up the pipes, it shouldn’t go into the toilet.

Here’s a list of some items that you shouldn’t flush:

Baby Wipes
1. Even when they say they’re flushable
Dental Floss
Kitty Litter
1. Even when it says it’s flushable
Dried/Clumped Kitty Waste
Hair
Condoms
Bleach
Cigarette Butts
Diapers/Sanitary Napkins/Paper Towels
Chewing Gum
Cotton balls/swabs
Food
Grease
Little Critters like fish/snakes (c’mon give them a proper buriel)
Medications/Drugs

etc. etc.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. Use this as a guide to avoid costly plumber trips and embarrassing back-ups. Think about the solubility of the item, the toxicity of the item, and the likelihood that it would tangle with similar or other objects that might be in the pipes.

Additionally, if the property is on a septic system:

Nothing else besides septic safe toilet paper

If your place is on septic, we recommend making a sign for the toilet or the wall to remind guests of what can and what can’t go down the toilet. It’s also probably best to buy a trash can with a lid and keep it by the toilet.