Mike wrote:
Hey folks. Need some advice before I have to call a plumber (or some
other drastic step). One of our toilets has started to back up, not
completely flushing the contents of the bowl (it hasn't overflowed,
yet). I plunged and plunged (using 2 different plungers!) and the
toilet still won't flush as it used to. At best, the water now just
swirls a bit, gets lower in the bowl (often leaving some remains of
the last use) and then starts to re-fill. Is a snake the next step?
Anyone got one I can borrow on the north side of Atlanta? ;-)

Thanks for any input...

Mike

Pull the toilet. I have a rental apartment and last week the tenant told
me they had been plunging it for hours and had the result you described
and wasn't there some powerful way to clear the clog. I told him there
was a 99% chance someone dropped something into the toilet and any more
pushing will drive it into the sewer. They didn't believe me. When I
pulled the toilet there was a large plastic cap inside the trap that
couldn't quite make it (thankfully) into the sewer line.