Everything and the ABCs: What We Found in a Laundry Drain

Some drains collect lint. This one was collecting a whole toy box.

We went out to investigate a blocked laundry drain. What came out? Toy cars. Colorful alphabet letters. More little objects than any P-trap should have to babysit.

Everything and the ABCs. Literally.

A tiny traffic jam. A very real clog.

A drain is supposed to move wastewater along. These cars had other plans.

All the items in these two photos were trapped in the same laundry P-trap. The letters weren’t spelling anything useful. The cars weren’t going anywhere. And the water had run out of room to pass.

Unfortunately, this one needed wall access.

We would have liked a simpler route. But reaching this laundry P-trap and removing the whole collection required cutting into the wall.

That’s the part a slow drain doesn’t tell you from the outside: what is in there, how much of it there is, and what access the repair will need. On this job, getting to the trap was the way to remove it all.

You never know what you’ll find.

Drain and sewer calls can hide some surprises. Sometimes the culprit is ordinary buildup. Sometimes there’s a different problem. And sometimes a laundry P-trap is running an unauthorized preschool.

We don’t know how this collection got there. We do know that guessing wouldn’t get it out. Finding the blockage and choosing the right access mattered more than assuming every clog would clear the same way.

A quick pocket check beats a plumbing surprise.

Before laundry day, check pockets for little toys and loose objects. Keep small items away from open laundry drains. If a drain keeps backing up, tell us what you’ve noticed and whether anything may have gone down it. A useful clue can help us investigate.

And if you’re pretty sure a toy car has disappeared into the plumbing? Tell us. We’ve seen the traffic.