A tenant reported that the toilet kept backing up in her work studio.  While clearing out the waste pipes the plumber pulled out big wads of lettuce, celery and other green food waste.   There was a lot of it.  It was like a horrible sewage salad.  When this was shown to the tenant she admitted to flushing the food waste down the toilet but refused to believe that it had caused the back-ups because “it was all natural”.  According to her only unnatural things would block up a sewage pipe.

I explained that if she continued to put food down the toilet she was going to continue to have back-ups and she would be charged for the plumbing repairs.  She got very upset and said she did it at home all the time and never had any problems.

Me:  You put lettuce and onions and so on down your toilet at home?

Tenant:   Of course!  But I do it down the sink at home.

Me:  You do what down the sink?

Tenant:  I put the food down the sink at home.  With a garbage disposal.  I don’t have one here at the studio so I put it down the toilet.  It’s all the same thing.

It took a long time to get her to understand that the toilet and garbage disposal were not the same thing and that no food was to ever go into the toilet again.