Toilet Auger: From Bad to worse

[Diem]

A little back story: I recently moved with my wife into an ancient rented apartment in San Francisco. In around seven months the toilet has clogged each time and each time, due to owning a clandestine pet, we have been unwilling to get the landlady involved. The first two times the clogs were fixed with a combination of a rather sorry plunger, an unbent coat hanger and patience. Yesterday morning the toilet experienced its latest clog and this time none of the usual tools worked. This time I decided to use an auger. At first I had real trouble getting the auger past the first bend as this particular toilet had an extremely acute angle. With a bit of force I managed to get the cable in a decent length and found myself drilling into something. At this point the drain was cleared and water easily flushed through.

Removing the auger turned out to be more challenging. Per advise on the internet I wiggled it, pulled and pushed and eventually, with an ungodly amount of force and nightmares about splitting the toilet in two I retrieved it to find...this:

I don't even know what that is. Is it a piece of toilet interior that I have crudely ripped out? Is it something a previous tenant left?

Just to add insult to injury after getting the auger out the toilet is STILL CLOGGED. If anyone has any suggestions or solutions I would love to hear them.

 

[Caduceus]

That looks like the plastic "horn" of a wax ring. You may need to pull the toilet and see if a previous install left the wax ring smashed and blocking the toilet outlet.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MdWsCvd5A0[/ame]

 

[Diem]

That looks like the plastic "horn" of a wax ring. You may need to pull the toilet and see if a previous install left the wax ring smashed and blocking the toilet outlet.

Thank you for your advice. Could the auger have caused the horn to break like that? As I said this toilet has clogged at least twice before so I wonder if there were more plastic shards down there.

 

[Caduceus]

Looking at the angle at which the auger snagged it I could only guess that the ring and horn were not seated correctly. You never know for sure until you see it with your own eyes.

 

[Mr_David]

I've seen some horns with a 3" dia opening and some with a 4".
typically the drain/flange opening is 4" and reduces to 3" as it turns horizontally. If a 3'' cone was used on a 4" flange, then one could easily catch the edge of the horn on the auger. If it's a rental and you're not confident about pulling and resetting I would call the Landlady. have some one take the pet to the park. You pull it and the flange is messed up then what?