Well, when we did the multiple walk throughs and brought parents back to see the house the toilet was… a toilet. Everything looked normal and nothing was obscenely gross or odd looking. During the Home inspection we noticed water stains on the big pipe in the basement (the pipe that brings the poopoo out of the house). It looked like water stains and so we asked the inspector to have a look and he says..”Oh that? Nah, thats an old leak. Its not leaking anymore whatever it was.”

Next time we see the house is the final walk through. Someone came back to the vacant house to “clean”. They decided that adding an industrial sized toilet tank cleaner things would be a good idea. I am talking about those nasty blue dyed toilet bowl cleaners that you add to the tank of the toilet…plop just let them sit in there and do what they do. So basically they had been sitting in the tank until we came to do the walk through and the blue stain had been sitting and the bowl was now stained and there was some weird oily stuff in the toilet as well. The handle for flushing was all grimed up, the seat was messy and all of a sudden we realized “yuk! this is a grody toity!”

So after the walk through, closing, moving, etc… I was in the basement and noticed some water on the floor and upon closer inspection I realized it was BLUE!!! I looked up and the “old leak” was actually a “CURRENT leak” and was coming from the gross, and now freshly BLUE toilet bowl.



(This is the grungry toilet tank that they had emptied and the blue hockey puck gunk still remained.)

We scooted on over to Home Depot and picked out a toilet hat can flush a bucket of golf balls – you never know when you will have THAT need – and we brought it home for installation. Oh, and I used a Lowe’s coupon at the home depot, apparently they cross-honor the coupons so pass it on!

Luckily we have the Master of Plumbing/Electrical/Wood working/YOU NAME IT!!!, my father-in-law at our disposal and he was there to show us (us = Gary) how to get the job done. They strapped on some rubber gloves and got to work. I won’t go into ALL the details as I was plopped on the chaise lounge in new pajamas and under a blanket with a special heater named Neo to keep me warm. It had been a long day of moving the day before, and this particular day we went back to the old apartment to paint, and move the rest of the stuff….I was there to document most of the process so I consider that a healthy contribution.

Here’s how it begins:

Then…

As you can see number 5 says “Phalange”. Well, once the old toilet was removed the guys realized the old “lead pipe” was not so round and it would need a Phalange insert thinger- trip #1 to Home Depot.


But, then in number 6 it says “Not Level.” This is where they informed me that the floor around the toilet was not level, not even close. As you can see in number “3. Gunk.” the off-whiteish areas in front and behind the actual pipe area are where someone “shimmed” the wax ring so that the toilet would sit level. This is why the toilet was leaking. The toilet had come lose from the wax ring seal because of minor rocking created by the un-level floor.

So – trip # 2 to Home Depot (thank goodness it’s a couple minutes down the road) – The guys come back with “Floor Leveler” or “Self-Leveling Concrete” stuff. This is where my documentary skills really lacked. I have a picture of the bowl they mixed it in (which I got for them) but, no actual picture of the level floor once it all dried. 2 trips to home depot and 5 hours later I was still in the chaise lounge BUT not really awake anymore. Here is proof that they used the self-leveling junk.

So, after they leveled the floor I think it went pretty smoothly. And here it is:

So clean and pretty and new. Makes you want to jump right in!

Good Job Guys!

ps:(I called dibs on putting my butt on it first! haha)