Can someone answer a quick plumbing question? No emergency, just curiosity?

If the tank isn’t full, you’re not going to get a complete flush.
Your way was better than the suggested way, but the landlord may have felt taking the tank lid off was too much for other renters in your complex.

Last time I had to do that I discovered that you couldn’t just pour the water into the bowl, it had to go in with some force to start the process. No I can’t really explain that, but a few quarts (like from a saucepan) swooshed in at a sort-of sideways, downish angle with a fair amount of oomph seemed to do the trick.

Thanks peeps! I didn’t think it made much sense to just pour the water into the bowl. Maybe the building manager thought that filling the tank would be too much – most of the people living here are international students whose first language isn’t English, and maybe they (stupidly) assumed that the instructions would be too complex. (shrug)

I agree fill the tank especially if you cut a deuce. Just a little gangster knowledge I would like to share. When the police are about to raid a dope house suspected of holding large quantities they cut off the water first. That way they can only flush one toilet once. Some dealers keep buckets of water in a bathroom for this reason in case they get ran in on they can barricade themselves in the bathroom and keep refilling the tank and flush as much as possible if not all.

If you pour enough water at one time into the bowl, gravity takes over and it will flush. In any event, we don’t need any deuces floating around. What does that mean, anyway?

@john65pennington a deuce = a turd. cutting a deuce = pooping.

yeah, you do have to pour a whole bucket of water down at once and it works.

Thanks for all your input, everyone! Hopefully it’s not something I’ll have to worry about again for a while. The water is back on! :)

I always thought it was “dropping a deuce”. Cutting? I suppose there may be some pincer action involved. Putting the water in the tank first is the more sanitary way, trust me on this.

Most people don’t know that you only need a gallon of fast, downward moving water to flush a toilet. No need to fill the tank w/ 5 gallons for a single flush. That would be a waste of a (at the time) limited resource.

@RocketGuy – Good point. I flushed the toilet a few times throughout the day while the water was shut off, and didn’t bother filling the tank even halfway.