Bottled-up Sheboygan park toilets a growing headache

SHEBOYGAN – Someone’s been shoving a bottle down the can.

Sheboygan police this week said they’re looking for help solving a curious commode caper — one that’s apparently involved someone forcing a bottle into pipes at the Deland Community Center’s public women’s restroom.

“Over the past year and a half, someone has been clogging the women’s toilet at the Deland Community Center with a 20 ounce soda bottle,” police said in a news release posted Tuesday on the department’s Facebook account.

Police said the culprit apparently hasn’t been flushing the bottles down the toilet but instead inserting the bottles directly into the pipes.

“We can’t figure this one out,” Joe Kerlin, the city’s parks and forestry superintendent, said Tuesday afternoon.

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The incidents began in 2016, Kerlin said, though city officials didn’t begin carefully tracking the cases until later. He estimates it happened about a dozen times in 2016, and about 14 times last year. Three cases have already been reported this year.

Kerlin said cameras installed near the community center’s restrooms reveal an adult man is likely behind the problem. Evidence from the cameras has been turned over to police, he said.

The suspected potty-plugger has hit another nearby public facility, too, but mainly focuses on the porcelain thrones at the lakeshore park's community center, Kerlin said.

“A lot of times we can just fish ‘em out,” he explained, though officials have sometimes had to entirely remove toilets to extricate bottles.

That’s made for some big plumbing bills, and the parks and forestry leader said the city’s been on the hook for an estimated $2,000 to $3,000 in fixes. The targeted restroom has occasionally been closed during cleanup, he added.

The police department says it’s looking for help finding the bathroom bandit. Anyone with information about who could be behind the clogs should call Sgt. Joel Kuszynski at 920-459-3341. Suspicious behavior around the restrooms should be reported to police at 920-459-3333.

Kuszynski wasn’t immediately available by phone for comment on the matter Tuesday afternoon.

Anonymous tipsters can also make reports to the Sheboygan Countywide Crime Stoppers at 877-283-8436, or online at www.cufthem.com.

“This is very strange … and gross,” police said in their online statement Tuesday, “but that is the reality of life.”