Gun among weird items flushed in NT toilets

A gun is among the many weird and wacky items lost and found in the Territory’s sewer system.

A GUN is among the many weird and wacky items lost and found in the Territory’s sewer system.

The mind boggles as to how a crank shaft from an engine, babies blankets, towels, bicycle handlebars and underwear all made their way into our underground sewerage system.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s face masks that are making an appearance more than ever before, causing major issues as the elastic straps get caught in the filter systems.

Power and Water water services delivery senior manager Eric Boyle said the sewerage system had some “pretty horrible” surprises.

“We had a pretty interesting phone call from the police looking for a firearm,” Mr Boyle said.

Guns, underwear and money are just some of the things that have been flushed down Territory toilets. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“Someone had supposedly dropped it down the sewer but we didn’t find anything.”

In another incident, a man accidentally flushed thousands of dollars down the dunny.

“A guy turned up at our treatment facility in Ludmilla,” Mr Boyle said.

“He’d just flushed a whole stack of money down his toilet. By the time it got to our plant it would have been all mushed up.”

When it came to the crank shaft, Mr Boyle said the workers were a little confused.

“That’s just one of the ones we just went ‘how the hell did that get into our system?’,” he said. “But we do get people who think its funny to lift the sewer lids.”

The changes of getting your belongings back after you’ve flushed are slim but not impossible.

“If there’s a chance we’d be able to find something, if something significant, the guys will have a think and a scratch of the heads,” Mr Boyle said.

“But we do ask people to be careful of what they flush as it does cost us a lot of money.

“Our guys are flat out busy rushing to these incidents.”

And heading down into the sewers to retrieve lost items is not only a little gross but quite dangerous.

Below the Territory’s streets are giant fatbergs, “large globules of everything”.

“It’s not only dangerous, there’s some pretty toxic gasses coming out of the sewer system,” Mr Boyle said.

“Our plea is the three Ps. Pee, poo and paper. That’s all that should go down the toilet.”

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Originally published as Gun among weird items flushed in NT toilets