Tenant rented about 4 months, was polite mannered, always paid early. Kept a clean apartment. Guy had a relatively good paying job and a reference from employer saying they planned to keep him.

Out of the blue, he suddenly misses rent. No reply for days. Then he texts that he moved, and thank you for the opportunity of renting.

OK.

So I go to his apartment and find it completely full of furniture. Including a huge flatscreen TV, queen size mattress on floor, several couches with the pillows in plastic bags, apparently wrapped. The furniture wasn't A grade, had scratches and dings, so it looked like second hand stuff not brand new, but still decent furniture. Cabinets full of dishes and utensils. Clothes, pictures on walls, all personal items were gone.

I texted the guy and said, "Are you coming to get your furniture?" He says, "No, you keep it JP.". Nothing more.

Well, that was certainly weird. Now for the big problem.

The bathroom vanity sink had the stopper pulled out, and was under the sink in the cabinet. There was stuff around the sink that could have been barf bits, or clumps of paper bits, I'm not really sure what it was. But the sink would not drain.

I tried some pretty strong draino and let it sit overnight. In the morning came back and the water had gone down and through completely. But, the drain was still blocked. So almost completely, but not completely.

I then got a pipe snake, a hand crank one. About 2 1/2 feet down the pipe, down inside the building, there appears to be something hard, I can tap on it with the pipe snake but it won't hook anything.

What could it possibly be, that would block the drain and seem hard as rock?

So I texted him and asked. No reply.

I didn't see any gunk inside the pipes I could see, so I can't imagine it being concrete or plaster or anything like that.

There was one thing: In the sink trap, there was a dirty old ring, a womans ring. But who knows how long that had been there, it could have been from a previous tenant I don't know.

I tried sucking the pipe with a shop vac. No good.

Tenant downstairs said she thought he lost his job, and had heard him talking on the phone to unemployment. That explains part of it. But why leave all the furniture.

Anybody have this happen before, have any idea what this could be down in the pipe....and what did you do?

Don't hurt yourself trying to figure it out.

Roll up your sleeves and getter rented again.

I never thought about a pill bottle, but what confuses me is there were three bends in the pipe before it got to the straight part, and the bends were all clear. How could a bottle go down all those bends? Unless he unscrewed all the pipe trap, and then dropped a pill bottle down that way, underneath the cabinet. That seems unlikely.

Of course I'm all for getting it rented again, but thats not gonna happen without the plumbing working.

He never answered the question what went down the pipe, so that certainly looks guilty.

As far as draino. Its a great idea when it works, and you're a fool for doing it when it doesn't right. Eh well.

I’ve had this happen several times over the years. I’ve never had the great drain mystery just normal clogs.

The most recent time the guy just stopped communicating completely. When I posted the notice of entry I was afraid that I was going to find him in the tub. Luckily he wasn’t.

Everything of value was gone. Lots of stuff though everywhere. Another tenant said he saw him loading a van. It took me a while to find a relative, a brother in another state. The brother said the tenant was with his mom in Georgia I think he said.

Use a camera to look inside the line. If its only 2.5 feet you should be able to see. Next up to try would be a rubber drain cleaning blaster. Oaññtey makes one called "clog buster" It uses water jets to clean.

But I would only do this if it was some type of bunk clog/hair/soap/grease.

Do not do this water jet step if it is a hard metal or plastic item. Then you will just push it further down the line.

My drain guy talked about the baking soda/vinegar hack that people use to clean drains.