How do you unblock a toilet?

[SwedishEdith]

For a few weeks now, the water in the toilet rises quite high when it's flushed, then almost disappears then gets back to normal. So, I assume there's a physical blockage in there. How do we get rid of it? Do we need to get someone in to sort it out?

Get a plunger or an old mop and stick it down to see if it's just a blockage of loo roll.

Think a plunger has been tried. And I've done the bucket of water thing to force whatever it is - which, clearly, didn't work.

Put a large plastic bag over your hand /arm and stick it down the toilet to see if you can manually shift the blockage. Seriously, would you actually can someone or before trying this?

*call someone out

Having worked in a pub or two along the way, one trick I had that sometimes helped was to get a bin bag (make sure it's a really decent one with no holes in it!), put that over my hand and arm, and stick my hand down the pan, and push through the bend as far as possible to dislodge anything that had stuck there.... bit grim granted, but it often did the trick!

Failing that you can hire drain rods (they're really flexible so should be able to bend more than your arm), or if nothing else works then it will be a case of getting someone in to have a proper look - the blockage may be further down the pipes. Do any other drains/sinks do the same?

Put a plastic bag over a mop head and use that as a plunger.

Pour washing up liquid in, leave it for an hour or so then pour a kettle of boiling water in from a height.

Repeat the mop plunger.

tie a plastic bag (e.g. 5p tescos bag) over a toilet brush. Insert into toilet and pump vigorously up and down - worked for me when a load of quilted paper blocked the toilet.

We had this problem last week. We ordered a specific toilet plunger from Amazon (it's not a sink plunger), it worked!

I recently had the same problem.
Get a bucket of water, from the tap. Flush the toilet first, it will empty and gurgle. Next, pour from a height, the water, and flush. Repeat, until unblocked, worked for me, after 3 or 4 buckets. Good luck.

Oo, more ideas, thanks. Flexible drain rods sound good as do also have sink that drains slowly. Will have go this weekend.

Wrap a plastic bag over a loo brush and plunge, always seems to work for me.

If your sink is also slow, the blockage could be further along the pipes than the ubend of the toilet.
Can you lift the drain cover nearest the house? If you look near the bottom of the soil pipe you should see it.
If the man hole is full, you have a problem further on down the drain run. If it is empty, then the problem is between the manhole and the toilet. Try experimenting with turning different taps on to pin down where the blockage is. At this point, you can either borrow some drain rods and have a go yourself, or get someone in.
From personal experience, inventing a blocked drain is unpleasant and smelly, but much much cheaper than paying someone else!