No, that isn’t a scorpion but rather the head of a plumbing snake my neighbour and I lost in my main sewer clean out last April when we tried to clear a clog that a professional plumber didn’t completely clear.
The plumbers who came today to clear yet another nasty clog (after having the hot water heater die a couple of weeks ago…plumbing curse!) saw the snake head on the video scope and managed to pull it out along with a metric tonne of filth that had backed up behind it forcing me to use a transfer pump to keep the downstairs toilet from overflowing when the dishwasher or washing machine would drain for these past couple of weeks.
This was after discovering my house apparently has dual sewer exhausts (something the first guy missed) and multiple clean outs (which my neighbour discovered but what we didn’t know was that there was another port near the main line for the upstairs we could see).
What snapped the head off was a flapper door that acts as a backflow preventer that sheared the line off when it pinched the snake that we were retracting.
Hopefully THIS will end the cursed plumbing once and for all though sadly it looks like Fortitude (a Japanese Maple named for one of the lions outside the NY Public Library) will have to go as it is too close to these sewer lines. Fortunately Patience (the other lion) can happily stay! 🙂
UPDATE: After further consideration, Fortitude has stayed put as the roots don’t seem to be moving near the pipe. Which is good because I wasn’t really keen on moving him as he’s a) huge and b) part of the matched set. 🙂
