All Drains Lead to My Septic Tank

This story must be told because it’s just too crazy. I was all alone at home in the middle of the day (which still feels absolutely glorious and special to me) when I ran downstairs and noticed a lot of water on the floor in my entryway outside the bathroom. I looked at the toilet and it wasn’t clogged but it didn’t flush either. I threw some towels on the puddle and ran out the door. A few hours later I got home, mopped up the mess (the water was totally clean) and couldn’t figure out what had happened and promptly forgot about it as the next few hours were consumed with kids, driving to activities, and chaos. 

To make a longer story a little shorter, later that night Henry took a bath and after I drained the tub I went downstairs and the puddle was back and this time the water was brown but smelled a lot like the bath water from Henry dumping an entire bottle of bubble bath into it. But the water was so gross that I had to wear gloves as I cleaned. Meanwhile Ethan started doing laundry while I mopped up the floor with all the towels I could find and plunged and plunged and plunged away at the toilet. . Nothing worked. So I started to do the dishes. Then I finally realized that whenever someone used water in the house, the toilet near the entry way would overflow and flood the house. I finally got smart (after running out of towels) and used a bucket to fill and dump all the water that kept coming out of the toilet. It was a disgusting workout!

A plumber came the next day, removed the toilet, and put a long hose with a camera on it and we watched from a tv screen as he threaded it through the pipes. Turns out the main line was clogged due to roots breaking through a pipe that emptied the main plumbing line into the septic. It took a couple hours to discover and remove the roots blocking the drain. And it cost $1600. The plumber still needs to come back to fix the pipe but not until I dig up the broken pipe for him to repair. If I dig the hole I save us $1,000 and you know how I hate spending money right?  Well I’ve dug and Landon has dug and Parker has dug (a little) but we still can’t find the blasted pipe, even with the area marked off by the plumber. Hopefully in all my spare time and when the ground isn’t frozen, I can find the elusive pipe before it gets clogged again. I'm beginning to wonder if the plumber was just messing with me when he marked off where I need to dig. But hey, I’ve always wanted a swimming pool and we are well on our way to having a hole for one!