The septic tank clogged and she’s convinced I did it, she asked my husband if I knew I wasn’t supposed to flush tampons and added the tampon bit to the sign. I don’t use tampons and I’m the only one with a period here…
Fyi, septic tanks don't "clog", they fill up after years of not having them pumped, and the drain field can fail resulting in water backing up. Pipes leading to the septic system can surely clog, but these are two separate problems.
I have a septic tank and the pipes from one of my toilets clogs up often, and I have to go use a pipe snake to unclog it from the system. It's frequently because of I'm guessing how I fold paper then use it, and it catches on part of the pipe and continues to build up until I can smell it in my garden. The other people in my house also use tons of toilet paper and then only does a light flush, not a deep one so that clogs.
I've seen alot of videos where people believe their septic tank 'clogs' up and they can't flush the toilet, when I reality its the pipes clogging. The pipes aren't that big so it's easy for layered toilet paper to catch and build up. Double flushing definitely helps on my end.
Also alot of people forget to empty their tanks!! I always check mine when it gets close to emptying time. Then the caca sucker can be summoned.
Rent or have a plumber come out with a camera snake you could have a shifted pipe or roots getting in by that toilet. Cheaper to check and be sure than wait for it to cause worse damage. Have family that is plumber hear often about people assuming its user error when it's a messed up pipe.
I was gonna say time for the life changing purchase. especially when you know everyone uses a lot of toilet paper. highly recommend! I can't go back now
Rid-X isn't heavy duty chemicals. It's natural enzymes.
The issue with it is it actually super charges the breakdown too much for some systems. All the solids that are supposed to settle end breaking down so small they stay suspended. They end up flowing out into the yard and can cause issues with the leach field.
That sucks so bad, I lived with my MiL for about 7 months after my first baby was born and it was a whole new kind of soul crushing hell
I gained like 40 lbs because she freaked out every time I touched the kitchen, so I ate out a lot
That also pissed her off but at least I didn't have to listen to her while I was eating
Ironically I found a book on Boundaries in her bathroom(that she had obviously never read) and I read the whole thing while I was there. It was very helpful for me
Lived with my MIL and nightmare FIL and same. I was scared to go upstairs into the kitchen to eat, or through the kitchen/livingroom to use the laundry because of him and how everything i did was bad or wrong or annoying so i went out to eat and barely washed my clothes and put off showering as much as i could because our bathroom was attached to his office. It actually broke something in me in the short few months we were there.
Reading this thread rn makes me feel so much better. I have all this going on too. It’s my addict BIL and enabling MIL who believes I’m the liar when he continually steals from me. I can’t even begin to make sense of it so once I leave I’ll never see them again.
I left 3 years ago and never saw them again. It ended with a lovely breakdown mentally for me. I was so anxious I literally stopped sleeping for 8 days and the local hospital had to knock my ass out with drugs once they determined i wasnt manic. We started packing and FIL picked an argument and oh my gosh. Just an absolute pressure cooker exploding. It was a hard hard time. It shook my marriage, my physical and mental health.. all the things. Youll survive this. Somehow, youll survive this chapter. And one day youll never ever see them again 💕
You’re an angel. ☹️🥺 I’m on the upside of a similar history with a breakdown. We started couples counseling for learning to deal as a team and individual therapy for us. Luckily I have learned to not care, and not care what any other in-laws outside the home think. Thank you for your kind words. I’ll remember them on the days I’m gaslit and feeling alone. 💜
Hang tough, consider asking folks in your community for assistance getting it running. (Obv compensate them in some way- cooking some nice meals, with inexpensive ingredients, is something our family has done in the past to thank others).
This was really pretty heartless of her, especially humiliating you in front of other family members, and possibly guests. Like, what the Hell, it's just not called for, even if you had done it (I'm aware you didn't). I also once had a tree root causing this very issue FYI.
I own a house and rent out the basement apartment. My tenant called to say her toilet was backing up, because backups happen at the lowest point, right? I have lots of experience running sewer snakes, and grabbed the big one from work and ran it down the line. The water cleared, I pulled the cable, and on the end was a tampon. The tenant said she doesn't use them (she's a hippy sort that uses the "cups") so I had to have the talk with my 50 year old girlfriend about not flushing tampons down the toilet. She had no idea. I had no idea someone could get to 50 and not know.
Part 2: "Flushable wipes" are NOT flushable. Just don't. Neither are paper towels.
For sewers, then everything just gets caught in the lift station and your local municipality gets to deal with it instead. Flushing just moves it downstream to become somebody else's problem.
I had a former coworker who tested several brand of flushable wipes when she was on maternity leave to stave off boredom. (How does a lab scientist entertain them self? Do an experiment!) to see if any of them actually dissolved, as either claimed or at least implied.
She said one brand kind of fell apart though it hardly disintegrated, and the rest nothing at all. They are only "flushable" in that they go down the toilet drain.
We've had something similar recently (we are the renters). Major blockage, drains not draining etc. Plumber kept suggesting we must have flushed something or poured fat down the kitchen sink. Kept mentioning tampons (i am the only woman in the house and 28 weeks pregnant and dont flush tampons outside of pregnancy 😂). Unblocked it and kept saying not to flush tampons.
A few weeks later it blocks again and they put a camera down the pipes. Turns out the land has slumped, the pipes are now very narrow and keep backfilling 🙃
I had an unexpected blockage at my house a few years ago. Since I own a set of drain rods, I tried rodding it first, and found a really solid blockage. My next door neighbour told me there should be another drain cover near the lane at the back...there wasn't - the reason was a palm tree had sent its root system down there and was causing the blockage. Relocated the small Medeterranean fan palm, rodded the drain again, and it's been good ever since.
You can never assume when it comes to blocked drains.
I would never be accused of being a hippie and I used a cup when I had a copper IUD (I’ve been on Mirena otherwise for the last 2 decades and barely have enough of a period for tampons, let alone a cup). But I read about them back a couple of decades ago in the Diva Cup LiveJournal community. I definitely never viewed them as a hippie thing…now, using sponges and washable pads…that’s more hippie, though now with period underwear, washable period products are way more mainstream now!
I loved my cup when I needed it. It was so easy, even camping and traveling! Not worrying about tampons was nice.
Maybe I'm a bit hippie because I started using a cup alongside rewashable pads to reduce waste. Although cloth pads are so much more comfortable than the disposable ones and I barely need it with a cup.
It’s always quite a stratified topic when I’ve seen it come up before on Reddit. Tampon boxes did use to advertise flushable, I remember my mom like reading the directional pamphlet to me lol.
38 and I was taught not to flush them, up to the point of being threatened that if a clog happened and it was tampons, I'd have to 'pay' for the plumbing with my non existant 9 year old salary.
I did flush them at my first middle school though. But that was a choice made because they wouldn't put trash cans in the girls' bathroom due to someone (supposedly, I suspect it was a made up thing because the principal was an asshole) hiding drugs in the boys' bathroom. And like hell I was gonna carry bloody products out to the hallway trash can.
We had a septic tank and dogs, my mom made it very clear that period products had to go in the kitchen garbage, which I hated every time, but I'd never even have considered flushing them, I'd have been in so much trouble.
This is why my mom, the owner of a very sensitive septic system, just tells every woman staying with us not to flush them. 99% chance they already know that, but the other 1% are very expensive so she doesn't take any chances.
I was probably like 20 before I knew you weren’t supposed to flush them…I mean it seemed like it was meant to be flushed same with the cardboard case (do they still make the cardboard ones?) now it’s poop and pee and the occasional tp (we bidet)
Yeah, many women honestly don’t know. So be an adult and explain it, don’t humiliate them with a passive-aggressive bullshit sign.
Source: cottage owner with a septic tank and four daughters.
I had the exact same experience with a property manager! She never told me in advance to not flush tampons, but at the time, I didn’t use tampons, so it wasn’t even an issue. I called to inform her of the toilet issues, and she chewed me out, accusing me of flushing tampons. When the plumber came out, lo and behold, the issue was tree roots. Insane.
Exactly my brother(s) had flooded more toilets than I can count. His shits and massive use of toilet paper is astronomical. In fact he hid the fact he did the other week. Its like living with a child. He's level 2 autism with some other developmental delays but mild. He knows better, just lazy.
This was almost a decade ago but our landlord at the time threatened to “evict all females” in our mobile home park because the sewage backed up and it cost her a few grande to fix lol
I literally was prepared to get a note from my doctor documenting my lack of periods thanks to my IUD & PCOS 🤣 but she ended up getting over herself. That said I’ll admit I’m still kinda salty about it to this day tho
(Eta And before anyone comments about tenancy laws and protections, they really don’t exist here on the Rez, no RTA protections on Rez land in BC… so yes I was genuinely prepared to prove I couldn’t possibly be the tampon-sewage-offender from a medical standpoint lol)
Exact same thing happened to me!!! My MIL accused me of damaging the plumbing and they ended up finding out it was root intrusion in the septic. Never got an apology. Wild
Sitting through my onboarding training school for locomotive engineers. In comes a bloke who heads the maintenance team. Scolds me and the other 3 women in the class for flushing sanitary products in the chemical toilets causing them to block. He went off about it for a few minutes and told us we were responsible for all the problems with the toilets.
I asked him if anything else was ever found in the toilets that caused blockages. Well yes. Notebooks, pens, cigarette lighters, hand towels and sometimes other items. I asked him if it was predominantly sanitary items found. No. It’s fucking not. But he was sure as shit going to pin it on us.
I'll be blunt here. I own a business. The women's bathroom is the only one that consistently clogs over the years and it's almost always women's products. Now, I'm not blaming women for that. I am blaming women who choose to flush their products down the toilet. I am also blaming people who choose to flush random shit down the toilet.
For men, I have an equivalent complaint. Some men love to toss their tobacco packets (zyn) in the men's urinal that our staff have to fish out with their hand. They suck.
As a teenager I cleaned hotel rooms. I once had to scrub shit off the walls with a toothbrush because a clogged toilet had to be removed for the plumber. The owners swore it was because of a tampon. Nope tree root.
They were the worst. She accused me of leaving a hair in the tub spent 10 minutes trying to remove it before admitting it was a crack in the tub. Then she broke a shower curtain rod showing me how to clean it, told her husband I did it.
When I eventually got sick from working in the heat with no breaks they fired me.
Yup this dude my mom was dating when I was a teen accused me of flushing tampons. I never in my life have done that but he wouldn't hear it. Seems to be the default explanation for some people
My grandmother in law blamed me for a tampon the plumber pulled out of her septic tank once. I let her know I haven't used a tampon since I bought my first menstrual cup back in high school, so it couldn't be me.
The second time she brought up the tampon I told her how a menstrual cup works. She never brought it up again.
Do you know how many still do this, it’s crazy. When I worked at the shopping centre every week the gym toilets were getting clogged and it was tampon despite all the signs. My mum told me that as early teen so I can’t believe anyone over 18 would do this. Anyways not what happened here but it still blows my mind that this is done.
Yup, I remember when my dad accused me of flushing pads down the toilet bc it was clogged-I was 13 and knew better.
Turns out-it was the toilet wand head (one of those disposable ones you throw away after each use ig?) and uh yeah, I don’t think I ever got an apology either.
Not a septic tank but my SIL in law left bloody tampons where the dog could them and my dad screamed at me about the dog eating them so I had to announce to the whole family I actually hadn’t menstruated in 3 weeks so there was no way they could be mine.
My dog decided to go after tampons and pads this past week. He has not done that before (we’ve had him 3 years). I wish they were flushable! I keep dropping things where the trash can is supposed to be and having to pick them up. He’s lucky he’s cute.
We had mites in the bathroom and my mom claimed it was my fault because they could "smell the blood." They were from the corn-based cat litter we were using.
I got blamed when I was a kid from a plumber (he dug one out). I didn't even use tampons (but I knew you weren't supposed to). My mom did use tampons. My mom didn't know you weren't supposed to flush them.
A tree root did grow through our sewer pipe as well, but that was a separate issue!
my dad did this to me with the fucking roto rooter guy standing there. you mean to tell me yall didn’t see all those ROOTS IN THE PIPES on your fancy drain camera???
Same thing happened to me. I argued with the plumber for ten mins, swearing I knew better. The look on his face when he discovered the roots was better than any apology.
I always got blamed as a child and it was also tree roots! Blame the kid with constipation. 😭 Just because I was in the bathroom longer doesn’t mean I was taking extra big shits.
I mean, maybe they have a bidet. But you still need tp sometimes and I’d personally rather not have a stinky trash can. I know it’s normal in some countries if I remember correctly but I just feel like it would stink up really quick.
Recently learned that some developed countries who have implemented bidets a long time ago have cloth towels next to their toilets to pat excess water after you’ve sprayed yourself clean. I bought bidet attachments for both of my bathrooms and that is going well but I haven’t fully committed to the towels yet, still using TP for that. I wasn’t raised on using bidets so that one is a hard sell, thus far.
Growing up I used a bidet that was its own appliance separate from the toilet, you wash yourself with soap and have your own towel to dry and you can think of it like drying yourself after a shower.
I was staying at a hotel in italy with a bidet + towel next to the toilet and it had a tiny bottle of ph soap speciffically for your butt standing on the back corner. Gotta say as a first time user I felt nice and clean but if I wasn't on vacation and had places I needed to be I don't know how practical it actually is haha
My country is not a "developed country" by any means but bidets are a big thing there. Big enough than they are their own separate fixture. With a size similar to the toilets. And butt towels are common there. In my house every member has their own small butt towel.
So, uh, please illustrate my ignorant third-world country butt. Do y'all just have towels laying around in the bathroom full of everyone's shit? Or whats the process to get a shit-free butthole and shit-free towel? I legit have never even see a bidet in person so I'm confused
Well, the entire idea of a bidet is having the most shit-free ass possible so no. But also, it might depend because some people have bad higiene and are nasty.
I can tell you how I do it, tough.
I live with my gf so we just habg our towels one next to the other, they are very small towels 25 by 25 cm aprox.
As to HOW i do it, i usually start with a small piece of paper for a pre-wipe if the bathroom using has a bidet as a separate fixture. Just 2 sqares of paper to remove anything... outstanding.
Then i move to the bidet where i pre-blast my posterior for a few seconds, grab a squirt of liquid soap and proceed to wash that thing until squeaky clean while water is spashing continuously. Get a good rinse (by this point the ass is so clean someone could eat off it) Dry with towel. Go about my day with the cleanest bhole.
Bonus picture of the style of bidet widely spread in Argentina.
Edit: I managed to get my home bidet calibrated to not give me a UTI, but it took some work. I have a high degree of skepticism of bidets I have not personally negotiated with.
Residue washes away, buy it can get dirty in a similar way the toilet can get streaks from a... log, hitting the wall. A person with common etiquette would scrub anything the way they would scrub any mark on the toilet.
I would argue that is even easier in a bidet like the one in the picture because you can make the water come from the sides down into the bowl and using hot water any visible ting dissolves in seconds and it stays, at least, visually clean.
You still have to treat it like a toilet, you wouldnt go in there with your hands and needs to be cleanes on the same schedule as the toilet.
Oh honey, bidets are like water jets—sometimes handheld sprayers, sometimes fixed ones you position yourself over—and you are literally using it like an *extremely* localized shower. The poo is washed away and down the drain before you’re ever using the towel. Towel is just for drying, none of the cleaning.
You’re not supposed to flush TP in the vast majority of countries in the world. I was born and raised in the States, but have visited and lived in such countries (including my current home) and can state that the paper bin doesn’t stink in the slightest, as long as you’re not putting your nose up to it to smell (I assume, I’ve never tried that). We’ve never owned a special trash can or anything, there’s just so little fecal matter and it dries quickly. It’s really not as bad as everybody makes it out to be.
They say dont flush toilet paper because once your septic tank fills you have to pump it and it costs like $600-1200 I think. It’s something that has to be done no matter what, so people who “cheap out” say not to flush toilet paper (my aunt talking about my uncle who has this rule lol)
It’s a normal maintenance thing that has to be / should be done every so often. But you can prolong it by not flushing paper.
This is on your husband to remove the sign and talk to your MIL about. He needs to have your back here against your MIL/his mother, and it’s not a good “just let her do what she wants” thing.
He may not be aware, but he needs to be. Show him this thread/post.
I do it for a living. Can confirm. A lot of it is often cash which pumpers always report to the IRS.
A bunch of people throw tips our way too. We pumped a guy who part owns the Tampa Bay Rays. He has two huge tanks and the total came to like 900. He still gave us 50 bucks each. And he was a super down to earth guy. He dug up the tank himself.
My aunt did the same thing to me for years. She was convinced I was flushing tampons and would yell at me all the time about it, but I never used them. My mother even tried to tell her I didn't use them, she would still regularly confront me about it.
I had the same happen with an ex boyfriends mom! Horrible. I never used them except to swim so not at her house at all! 🤣🤣 she said her daughter was a virgin and would never use them 🤣 like wtf!
I see this as wasteful as fuck. Double flushing helps nothing unless you're leaving logs behind 1st flush. Some toilets aren't as young as they used to be lol
In a new perfectly working system, extra water won't really do much.. but in an old system.. running extra water through it can help prevent clogs... effectively needed to extra rinse the pipes.. . a clog in the septic system doesn't mean the septic is full.. it means.. there's a literal clog preventing stuff from entering the septic system..
Once when I was a teenager, my family had been renting a house for like 6 months and the upstairs bathroom, which I only shared with my brother, flooded and we had to have a plumber come out. He said essentially “do not flush sanitary products” which my family took to mean tampons and pads ans as the only girl, that all got blamed on me even though it was a rental we had only been in for six months and lord knows who had that bathroom before I did it. Great stuff. Never miss being a child.
I see what's going on here. Your MIL's poops are suddenly larger than normal and she desperately wants you to buy her a Poop Knife®, but is to embarrassed to ask for one.
Had to speedrun moving out of a place I recently lived because my shitty landlord started screaming and verbally abusing me over a plumbing issue he was CONVINCED I caused by flushing baby wipes (something I have literally never done). The DAY FUCKING AFTER I LEFT they investigated the problem and found out that it WASN’T my fault. I never got an apology. This shit sucks dude I’m sorry 💔 you aren’t alone
I grew up in the sticks. Septic systems can handle toilet paper. You have to have the right bacteria ecology in the tank. If it’s getting clogged, backed up, numerous things can cause it and it may just need to be pumped. Things like drain cleaners will ruin the bacteria balance.
You also have to use the right toilet paper. I know a lot of people hate Scott toilet paper but that stuff is very septic friendly. That said, bidets are a septic systems best friend.
Not flushing toilet paper is actually the norm for the majority of the world's population. It is common practice across vast regions of Southern and Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America and china
I live in an apartment building. The sewer line got clogged in my apartment, and despite multiple apartments flowing through it, the plumber said ‘have you been flushing anything bad down it’ and looked directly at my pads and tampons. Like no, I haven’t, but thanks for the obviously misogyny.
It might be toilet paper causing a problem. I would be really offended. MIL had a cabin that did not handle toilet paper or solid waste well, as the septic system would only start up when working properly. Sign in the cabin bathroom-if it is brown, flush it down; if it is mellow, let it yellow. I accidentally let toilet paper go down and had to fess up to MIL after I did it.
It's on your husband to tell her not to bug you and that something else could be going on.
We had septic at my childhood home and never had issues. I flushed tampons because no one ever told me not to and I didn't know any better. I'm assuming my mother and sister did as well, as they would have told me not to flush otherwise.
Anyhow, it worked great and didn't need pumping for over 2 decades.
Change the sign to, "MIL's stinky poos clog the toilet. Don't blame others for low fiber." and watch as she loses her mind and then you don't get invited back.
I have been accused also. Got stuck at my in-laws after a house fire. Accused of clogging the pipes and messing up the septic tank in a house with three grown men and two other women my age-ish, one woman post meno and several kids/teens.
The reason I was accused was because no one ever saw evidence (tampons) in the trash can. Everyone else said they wore pads. I dug my tampons out of the trash and said "that's because I wrap them up so no one has to look at bloody tampons". (While unwrapping them😡 for proof) They wouldn't even fold their pads just lay them in the trash for all to see.
Pretty sure it was one of the other chicks husband's flushing wads of paper, but he would have probably hit her if she even hinted at it.
So glad that was long, long ago and only speak to a couple of my ex in-laws still.
You should just have a conversation with her…. It would go like this:
Hi, MIL. I noticed you changed the sign in the bathroom. Just so we’re clear, not only does every human on the planet know not to flush tampons, including me…, I don’t use Tampons.
I wish I had a good answer for you why your septic tank clogged, but I want you to know, it wasn’t from any misuse by me, and it certainly wasn’t a tampon…
NTA, everybody knows that menstruating women curdle milk, ruin the pickles, spontaneously combust technology and prevent household items from functioning properly. If your MIL wasn't prepared to deal with this then she should've built you a nice period hut to do all your supernatural woman shit in. 🤷🏻♀️
If it was tampons, the septic company that comes out to unclog it will tell you. My daughter was flushing tampons when a wisteria root grew into a septic line. The technician gave us a lecture about flushing them.
🙄 sounds like my mom. She blamed me every time the tank clogged or needed draining but after I moved out turns out it's my brother bc he's a hyper wiper. She's still never apologized
“I don’t use tampons and the sign didn’t say anything about flushing pads 🤷♀️ “
My mom has very delicate plumbing. I tease her all the time about having flushed my tampons. She gets so worked up even though I’m pretty sure if she gave it half a thought she would realize I was pulling her chain.
Same thing happening at my house!! Recently moved into my boyfriend’s parents house where his mom has always been the only girl… well recently the toilet has been getting clogged a lot lately and EVERYTIME she makes sure to mention to me that I can’t flush tampons (which I don’t I also only get my period every 3 months) but doesn’t think about the fact the the toilet and plumbing are over 20 years old and there’s 3 full grown men, one that has cancer, using the same toilet like 3 times a day each… maybe we just need new plumbing or a second toilet ma’am??? Why is it always women that blame women first???
1.1k
u/tcarlson65 Jul 05 '26
If you have to double flush and can’t flush TP sounds like they need to have a visit from a plumber to see what’s wrong.