My boyfriend and I recently bought a house. This past Tuesday to be exact (6-21-11), we had a home inspection done before we bought the house. Everything worked perfect, no clogs, or leaks, nothing. Tuesday when we signed for the house, we started moving things in that night. After everything was done he took a shower and everything worked fine. The next morning I got in the shower, everything drained fine for about five minutes then it just stopped. The toilet started to “bubble” and splashed out onto the floor. After I got out of the shower I cleaned up the mess and started plunging the bathtub, nothing changed. After doing this for a few moments the toilet started to bubble again, and this black sludge came out of the tub drain. I left everything how it was and just went to work; my boyfriend got up later that day and said the tub had drained. He took a shower and it did it again. Last night when I got home everything was drained, the toilet water was low. So I flushed the toilet and it started over flowing yet again. We have read and asked people what could be the problem, most people said it could be a clog or it could be a ventilation problem. We aren’t sure what the problem could be, I am terrified that we are going to have to take down walls or take up our tile floor. If someone could please help us out, we would greatly appreciate it.

This is a clogged vent stack which terminates above your roof line. It needs to be rodded with enough snake to reach roof top to basement plus 20'. If your roof is steep you might want to get bids from 3 plumbers