The Phantom Flusher

Toilet

From an email sent to my estate agent this morning.

Hi George,

After being kept awake by it for a few hours last night, I have done some further investigations into the mysterious flushing noises coming from the toilet in the master bathroom of Flat XXXXXXXXXXX. After wrapping my body around the toilet in a rather awkward embrace I managed to press my ear against the cistern for long enough to determine beyond doubt that it is definitely *our* toilet that is at fault.
The toilet appears to have two states:
State A – in this state there is no problem with the toilet whatsoever and everything is fine. This is inevitably the state that the toilet will be in every time a plumber comes to visit.
…but sometimes flushing it kicks the toilet into State B…
State B – in this state there is a constant dripping noise within the cistern, and often a slow trickle into the bowl. Then, like clockwork, at entirely predictable intervals there will be a *click*, the sound of rushing of water for about three seconds, then a *thunk* (and then if you’re in my bedroom a wibble-wobble-wibble-wobble like something metal rocking back and forth on another bit of metal, although I couldn’t hear that when my ear was pressed against the cistern). No water is released into the bowl itself during this process, although the whole thing sounds exactly like the normal flush except a bit quieter. The exact interval is consistent for a particular occasion, but varies from day to day – to give you a bit of a feel for what we’re talking, it was 55 seconds between flushes for the first half hour I was lying awake, and then when I tried flushing again it increased to about 80 seconds between flushes. A third flush eventually stopped it (for now!)
It would be great if something could be done about this, since without doubt this must be a significant contributing factor to our very high water bills!

Andy Geers