It was solid. Not a simple wodge of wet wipes. Something structural. He pulled the rod back. On the end, tangled in black slime, was a child’s rubber duck. Cheerful. Yellow. And next to it, a small, matted clump of what looked like felt.
Dave wiped his hands. “Upstream, then. There’s a flat above you?”
Scrape. Thunk. Pause.
Dave frowned. He went deeper. He swapped the corkscrew for the heavy-duty plunger head—a four-inch rubber disc on a steel shaft. He shoved it in, pumped twice, and felt the pressure build. On the third pump, the water in the gully didn’t rise. It fell .
He turned the handle. Scrape. Clunk. Squelch. drain unblocking epsom
A belch of foul air, then a genuine, eager drain-sound. The kind that makes a plumber smile.
Dave jet-washed the line anyway—three thousand psi, hot water, the works. By noon, the restaurant’s drains ran clear as a mountain stream. He charged his standard rate, plus the environmental disposal fee for the felt and the rubber. He wrote “toy dinosaur” on the invoice as a joke, then crossed it out. It was solid
Dave crouched by the main gully outside the back door. He lifted the grate. No flow. Black water sat flush with the top of the pipe. He took his long, coiled drain rod—the one with the corkscrew attachment—and fed it in.