HOW TO GET SOMETHING THAT FELL DOWN THE DRAIN

We've all had that ""Oh no!"" moment after dropping something down the drain. Earrings, contact lenses and even toothbrushes sometimes manage to make their way into the pipes. When this happens, what do you do? Here are some tips:

TRY A COAT HANGER

It seems silly, but if you are able to remove the drain catch, try and feel around in the pipe with a bent coat hanger. For smaller items, this may not work, but you can remove toothbrushes and other larger things with this method.

TAKE THE SINK APART

Anyone can take their sink apart to find a lost ring or earring. The first thing to do is turn off the water. Then, put something under the sink plug (what keeps gunk from going into the pipes) so it doesn't close. Place a bucket under your sink plumbing (usually under the sink cabinet) so water will fall into it. Unscrew the J​-pipe from the end near the sink and the side closest to the wall. Dump the water (and hopefully your lost item) into your bucket.

If you don't see your item, it may be stuck in the P-trap (J-shaped pipe). This means you'll have to reach into the drain from the top. The best device for the job? A magnetic retrieval tool (if what you are trying to retrieve is not silver or gold) or a pronged retrieval tool. These tiny lifesavers look like the antennae on your radio and often telescope so they can be made longer or shorter as necessary. You can purchase one at a hardware or plumbing store. Just slip it into your drain and use a flashlight to spot the item and grip it with the magnet or tongs. Pull the item out and give it a good scrub.

USE A WET-DRY VAC AND NYLON STOCKING

it's a helpless feeling whenever jewelry or other important items fall into a sink drain. The good news is that you can get these items back. First, DO NOT run water into the drain. Next, check out the instructions below to see how to use a wet-dry vacuum (WARNING: ordinary vacuum cleaners can cause electrocution if they come in contact with water) and an old nylon stocking to save the day! Here’s what you’ll need:

• Wet-dry vac
• Nylon stocking

Recover lost items from a drain by following these 10 steps:

1. Turn off water
2. Unclip the sink stopper bracket located under your sink
3. Remove the plunger rod
4. Remove the stopper in the sink drain
5. Replace the plunger rod to create suction
6. Pull nylon over the vacuum nozzle and turn the vacuum on
7. Place the nozzle over the drain as far as it will go down for a few seconds
8. Remove the nozzle from the drain
9. Turn the vacuum off and retrieve the item from the nozzle
10. Turn on water, replace the stopper and reattach the sink stopper bracket"

CALL A PLUMBER

If the above methods don't work, call Roto-Rooter. Don't use the sink, or your item may be swept away into your water system. Instead, keep the water off and let a professional do the job.

Our plumbers are available 24 hours a day to handle your plumbing emergencies. We have industrial-grade products to help locate your jewelry and other important items stuck in the drain.

ROTO-ROOTER TO THE RESCUE

Roto-Rooter to the rescue! On April 22, Roto-Rooter of Cincinnati was called to the home of Margaret Clark of Anderson Township in Greater Cincinnati. Mrs. Clark had been cleaning her 4-carat diamond ring, a 20th anniversary gift from her husband. She left the ring on the sink wrapped in tissue to dry. When she returned later, she grabbed the tissue, ring and all, and threw it in the toilet and flushed it down. Mrs. Clark instantly realized her mistake and panicked. She thought the ring was gone for good. Talk about a plumbing problem!

She called Roto-Rooter for help. Roto-Rooter plumber Gary Morford used a line camera to inspect her mainline. It's a fiber optic camera we normally use to look for cracks or breaks and determine if a sewer repair is in order. Within minutes of running the camera into the pipe, Mrs. Clark spotted her big diamond ring on the video monitor, deep inside the pipe. Gary pinpointed the location of the ring and had to break concrete in the basement floor to reach it but he was able to recover the ring for the customer. Channel 12 News out of Cincinnati did a big story about it then fed the story to TV stations across the nation. The story appeared more than 90 times from coast to coast and on CNN repeatedly.

Three days later, a family called Roto-Rooter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to help find their lost cat, "Bud." It seems Bud went missing four days earlier and was thought to be gone for good until the family heard faint meows coming from a downspout vent on the side of the house. Neighbors and a fire and rescue crew tried to locate the cat to no avail. When Dave Jones, the Roto-Rooter Contractor arrived, he found that the home's downspouts were routed underground and the pipe extended about 200 feet into a nearby woods.

Dave fed a fiber optic line camera into the pipe and found Bud stuck at a junction about 120 feet in. The cat was unable move because he had gotten himself wedged at a junction where a 6-inch pipe met with a 4-inch pipe. Who knows if the cat chased a mouse into the line or was himself trying to avoid a larger predator from the woods?

With a little bit of digging, Bud was finally freed. After four days in the pipe, the cat had lost several pounds and was a little dehydrated but is now doing well. An hour after his rescue, a thunderstorm dropped a lot of rain on the area and Bud would have surely drowned if not for Roto-Rooter. The customer couldn't be happier with us.

Three Harrisburg TV stations and the local paper covered the story and fed it to other papers and stations across the country. Again, Roto-Rooter was all over the news for helping the cat. But this was not our first cat rescue.

We typically get one or two out of pipes each year. The rescue of Zap the kitten in Birmingham a few years ago comes to mind. He owes his life to a Roto-Rooter plumber. Have a look at that little kitty face from the perspective of one of Roto-Rooter's pipe inspection cameras.

As a 24 hour plumbing company, Roto-Rooter probably gets more of these offbeat calls for plumbing services than local plumbing companies. Plumbing services encompasses much more than faucet repairs or clearing clogged toilet drains. While our residential plumbing team finds the strangest stuff, once in a while our commercial plumbing staff recovers something weird too. One business was having toilet problems and one of our licensed plumbing specialists found the toilet drain loaded with about a dozen of those tiny liquor bottles like the ones they serve on airplanes.

THE STRANGEST ITEMS FOUND IN DRAINS

Every plumber has a different story about the strangest items they have found in toilet traps and drains. In fact, we’ve even compiled some of the worst stories into a book, Chilling Tales from the Porcelain Seat.

Read on for a quick list of some of the strangest things Roto-Rooter plumbers have found in drains on routine service calls:

• Live animals. While it is typical to find flushed goldfish in the drains, some plumbers have reported finding live kittens, snakes, turtles, badgers, and other small animals in the toilet and drains.
• Dentures. While these can fall into the toilet, it is best to keep your dentures or false teeth as far from the toilet as possible when you are cleaning them to ensure that they cannot cause a drain clog.
• Personal electronics. These have ranged from items as small as watches and batteries to as large as cell phones. (So far, no tablets!) If it can be flushed, chances are someone has tried to fit it down the drain.
• Mop heads. These have actually been found more than once in drains and they can cause severe damage. For best practice on all unwanted items, dump it, don’t flush it, even if it’s already wet!
• Tools and home improvement supplies. There has to be an easier way to dispose of flashlights and screwdrivers than down the toilet, but that hasn’t stopped Roto-Rooter plumbers from finding them!
• Toys and children’s items. Whether they’re trying to get rid of an unwanted toy or give a loved toy a swimming lesson, flushing items down the toilet is a favorite pastime for children of all ages. Plumbers have found everything from dolls to toy cars in the drain, so do what you can to keep the toilet closed and encourage your child to only flush when necessary.
• Clothing and linen. Items ranging from as small as socks and underwear to as large as bedspreads have been found in toilet traps and drains.

Along with being surprised by the things they find, many plumbers are shocked at how some large items even fit down the drains. Make sure to keep strange items out of your toilets and drains. This will help to prevent a frustrating, costly problem from developing in your drains and pipes.