Funny Items Found by Plumbers: Strange, True, and Surprisingly Common

Roto-Rooter plumbers have pulled some genuinely surprising things out of drains, pipes, and toilets over the years, and the stories behind them are usually even better than the items themselves.

The items below come from that same tradition: strange, true, and more common than most homeowners would expect.

The Most Unexpected Items Found in Drains and Pipes

Drains and pipes have a way of collecting things that nobody intended to leave there, and the range of items Roto-Rooter plumbers have recovered over the years covers almost every category of household object: traffic cones, live animals, prosthetics, and even a plumber's own tools.

A Traffic Cone

A plumber in Britain once found a full-sized traffic cone blocking a drain, and the questions it raised were more interesting than the clog itself.

These are large, heavy objects that exist exclusively on streets and construction sites. How one ended up inside a residential drain remains officially unexplained. The leading theory involves children, a dare, and a degree of optimism about what a toilet can handle that turned out to be misplaced.

A Plumber's Own Tools

There have been multiple documented cases of plumbers sealing up a section of pipe without first noticing they had set a tool or two inside.

The tools sat quietly in the dark until toilet paper and debris caught on them, forming a clog significant enough to require a service call. The awkward part is when the same company shows up to retrieve what their technician left behind.

Children's Toys

Toilets are irresistible to small children, and the range of toys recovered from drain lines reflects the full breadth of what a curious child can get their hands on.

Plumbers have retrieved toy cars, action figures, rubber ducks, building blocks, and dolls in various states of disassembly. Keeping the bathroom door closed and the toilet lid down remains the most effective preventive measure available to parents.

Live Animals

Finding a live animal in a drain is more common than it should be, and the list of species is longer than most people expect.

Roto-Rooter has rescued enough animals from pipes and drains over the years to establish a dedicated pet rescue program, reuniting animals with their owners and finding homes for those that arrived without one.

Dentures and Prosthetics

Dentures, retainers, and crowns regularly fall into sinks while being cleaned, and the outcome depends entirely on how quickly the owner acts.

One particularly memorable Roto-Rooter service call in Chicago involved a plumber using a fiber optic camera to recover a prosthetic eyeball worth $5,000 that had traveled all the way to the main sewer line before being retrieved. The owner cleaned it off and put it straight back in.

Clothing and Bedding

The range of clothing recovered from toilet traps and drain lines spans from socks and underwear to full bedspreads, and plumbers are consistently surprised by how large items manage to fit through the opening at all.

Most clothing ends up in drains through a combination of small children, laundry room accidents, and optimism about what modern plumbing can handle. The larger the item, the more thoroughly it tends to block the line.

Personal Electronics

Personal electronics recovered from drains range from watches and batteries at the smaller end to cell phones and tablets at the larger end.

Most fall accidentally, slipping from a pocket or a bathroom shelf at an unfortunate angle. The phone is rarely recoverable by the time a plumber reaches it.

A Full Set of Car Keys

Car keys turn up in drain lines with a frequency that suggests this is less of a freak accident and more of a recurring household event.

Keys are small enough to clear the toilet trap but substantial enough to catch debris and build a serious blockage over time. The discovery is rarely welcome news for the homeowner, both because of the plumbing bill and because of what it confirms about where the keys have been for the past several weeks.

What Should Never Go Down a Drain or Toilet

Most drain blockages are not caused by traffic cones or prosthetic eyeballs. They are caused by everyday items that homeowners flush or drain without realizing the damage they cause inside the pipe over time.

For a deeper look at what Roto-Rooter plumbers have encountered inside pipes and toilets across the country, read our Chilling Tales from the Porcelain Seat.

These are the most common offenders:

• Wet wipes and baby wipes. These are the leading causes of sewer blockages across North America. Wipes do not break down in water the way toilet paper does. They travel through the toilet trap and accumulate in the sewer line, binding together into dense blockages that require professional equipment to clear.
• Cooking grease and oil. Grease poured down a kitchen drain arrives as a liquid and leaves as a solid. It cools inside the pipe, sticks to the walls, and builds layer by layer until the interior diameter narrows enough to cause a backup.
• Paper towels and facial tissue. These are thicker and more durable than toilet paper by design. That durability does not disappear inside a pipe. Paper towels catch on every rough surface and joint they pass until they build a blockage.
• Cotton swabs and cotton balls. Small enough to clear the trap but fibrous enough to accumulate at bends and joints inside the drain line over time.
• Hair. Hair does not dissolve in water. It collects at the drain opening, binds with soap residue, and builds a dense, sticky mass that tightens with every shower.
• Medication. Flushed medication enters the water supply and is not fully removed by standard water treatment processes. Most municipalities now offer drug take-back programs as the recommended disposal method.
• Food scraps. Even with a garbage disposal, starchy, fibrous, and greasy food waste accumulates inside drain lines and contributes to blockages over time.

When Something Goes Down the Drain

Acting immediately after something goes down the drain is the single most effective way to recover the item and prevent a blockage from forming. The further an object travels into the pipe, the harder and more expensive it becomes to retrieve.

Take these steps right away:

Stop running water immediately

Turn off the faucet the moment something falls into the drain. Every additional gallon pushed into the drain moves the object further down the line and deeper into the pipe system.

Check the P-trap

Locate the P-trap, the curved pipe section directly beneath the sink, and inspect it before doing anything else.

Most small objects, including jewelry, keys, and dental work, stop here before traveling further. Place a bucket underneath, unscrew the P-trap, and check the contents before calling for service.

Do not use chemical drain cleaners

Keep chemical drain cleaners away from the drain entirely. Chemicals will not dislodge a solid object. They corrode the pipe wall and create a chemical hazard for the technician arriving to retrieve the item.

Call Roto-Rooter

Contact Roto-Rooter as soon as the P-trap check confirms the object has traveled further into the line. Objects that clear the P-trap require a professional camera inspection to locate and retrieve without unnecessary damage to the pipe.

Roto-Rooter's plumbing technicians are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends and holidays. The sooner the call is made, the better the outcome for both the pipe and whatever ended up inside it. Schedule your service online today.