How many cotton buds to block a drain?

[lalalonglegs]

I own a flat in a Victorian building that has been converted into four flats. Two of the flats are empty (currently for sale) and a few weeks ago the owner of the basement (empty) flat said that he had had to call a plumber to unblock the communal drain as it was blocked with baby wipes. I told my tenants not to throw wipes down the loo - they said fine, I left it at that. Two weeks later, he says he called the plumber again, the drain was blocked with wipes. Again, I told my tenants not to throw wipes down the loo (they never said that they had in the first place), they said no problem. He has now called again today - 10 days later - saying the drain is blocked again, this time with cotton buds.

I just don't understand how a drain can get blocked this number of times - I mean surely my tenants, or the tenants in the flat below (all of whom seem quite sensible and haven't before caused a problem over the long time they've lived there), would have to be gleefully emptying cartons of wipes and cotton buds down the loo to cause this sort of problem. So my question is, could the blockage be coming from another property in the terrace of houses or could the plumber simply not be doing his job very well and not jetting away all the debris causing the blockage in the first place? This has now cost us leaseholders £450...

[Liara]

It does sound like there might be an obstruction which is narrowing the drain and making things which would normally get through get stuck. OTOH, no cotton buds or wipes at all should be going down the drains, so someone is doing something stupid somewhere.

Do you know whether the drain is exclusive to your house or is shared with others?

[Madmog]

Are you sure it's just a drain that serves the flats. Our drain goes into our neighbours property, along their boundary before both our drains meet up under our drive. By the way, we managed to unblock the drain ourselves, I found a long piece of wood and our neighbour kept moving it along the wipes (yes, we had them as well!) and suddenly everything was moving. Our neighbour has since bought some rods for joint use.

Someone may be using toilet wipes and I guess most would want to put them down a drain rather than in the bin, but there's no excuse for cotton buds.

[Clargo55]

And tell them not to flush tampons, these kept causing us blockages when neighbours flushed them.

[peggyundercrackers]

i would think there are problems elsewhere, as you say to block a drain with cotton buds would take some doing. i think you need to find out if the drain is shared before it comes to your house.

[TheGreatHunt]

Is there an errant toddler somewhere doing this?!

[InsertUsernameHere]

I once had a problem caused by a single wipe! The way it was lying in the drain meant it was wicking water round the u bend. I suspect theGreat may have hit the nail on the head. I imagine a single cotton bud couldn't block a drain but a single cotton bud, a single wipe,plus the stuff that is meant to be there - eg toilet paper, dirty/greasy cooking water and poo - that could cause a blockage!!

[lalalonglegs]

No toddlers in the building .

I can totally see how not very many wipes/buds etc would cause a problem but three times in about a month? And what's more puzzling is that there haven't been any problems since we did up the flats and people moved in about 18 months ago .

[LooseTheBlubber]

are they putting coffee grains or fat down the drain?