Help! - is the blockage inside or outside our flat?

Sun 30/03/08 02:12

Hi,
we live in a ground-floor, new-build, one-bed flat and I started noticing funny noises coming from the toilet after running the bathroom-sink tap for a while. That was Friday. On Saturday my wife flushed the toilet and told me she saw smelly backwash coming out of the bathtub plug-hole. As I slowly poured a basin of water into the toilet, the level gradually rose rather than draining away as it normally does; and as I did this, liquid splashed noisily and intermittently out of the bathtub plughole.

So I bought myself a 4.5m drain auger and practically pushed it all the way into the toilet without meeting any resistance, or, seeing any debris in the water or on it when I pulled it out again. I talked to a girl who lives in a flat two floors up within the same block. She said her toilet and bath took time to drain. Her boyfriend said he had noticed their toilet bubbling too.

I now know that when I run the bathroom-sink tap, the funny noises come from air bubbling through the water at the bottom of the toilet. The level of this water is also much lower than it used to be before this problem started. It may be worth keeping in mind that it has been raining consistently in our town since Friday, and the weather has been noticeably windy.

Because we cannot flush the toilet without risk of flooding or blocking it further, we can only use it for number 1s, and as you can imagine, this is extremely inconvenient.

Here are the questions I need help with:

1) What could be causing this blockage problem?
2) What is the likelihood that the blockage is within our flat or outside?
3) Would the property managers for the block of flats be responsible for fixing the problem if it is outside the flat?
4) Should I ask my landlord to send in a plumber, or should I be talking to the property managers to get the problem resolved?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tim