So for the past 6 months I've delt with this and quite frankly I don't want to waste money with a plumber until I'm 100% sure I can't fix it myself. I'm in a basement apartment, and all the toilets in my house are literally one on top of one another but on each level, so the water flows down into and under my apartment to the trap. I've had the problem of my toilet overflowing when I'm not home for a while so I turned off the water in the toilet when I'm not home. Then it started to not flush but bubble then later back up everyone in the entire houses "excreted matter" into my shower. We tried driano, it worked for 2 weeks, happened again, got a 35' snake, worked for a month now it's happening again. For example today I came home from work and my toilet was overflowing, after no one had been home all day in my apartment (not upstairs) I turned off the water let it go down in the toilet, then tested to see if it was going to overflow again by flushing this time it just bubbled. I got frustrated and let it go down and I walked away. Now 20 minutes later it flushes again. My toilet air vent line (I can't remember the name honestly) checked and stuck a hose down to try and see if there were any major blockages and there were none. We have 3 cesspools so there is overflow into the other if one fills up. Seriously some one make sense of this mess -_-

You said 'apartment!? ' Management company/landlord/owner's problem! You pay good money for rent, you should have a good place to live. Get them to fix it!

Completely agree with Scott

If this is an apartment, the responsibility is on the landlord!

Mark

It's my Dad's house, so technically I own half of it already...

What happens when you run the washing machine or drain a tub a number of times?

What happens when you run the washing machine or drain a tub a number of times??
The washing machine has a hose that drains into the far back yard and there isn't a tub in the house

Septic or city sewer? If septic, when was the last time the tank was emptied?

Septic I'm pretty sure and I'm not sure honestly

I can't be sure, of course, but sounds like it may be a good time to open the septic tank and take a look inside... may be full and need to be pumped!