Can't doo! (Kandoo Children's Toilet Wipes)

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	Kandoo Children's Toilet Wipes
Date:	11/12/02 (3062 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lets children become more independent, leaves your toddler nice and clean, come in a handy dispensable box

Disadvantages: Blocks your drains!, Customer helpline not helpful, useful for frogs maybe

There’s a new product on the market, advertised on the packet with a picture of a frog wiping his bum. Well, that about sums it up I’m afraid. When the new “Kandoo” baby wipes came out a few months ago, we thought “yippee!” –a great new product which encourages young children to be nicely independent, they can go to the toilet and wipe without wasting loads of toilet paper (like the Andrex advert).

Well, that’s the theory. However, in practice, as we well know, do not believe everything you see in adverts. Along comes our daughter, Lucy, now just over 4 years old. We had been trying, in vain, for her to become more independent in the “toileting” department. To try and encourage her further, we bought 2 packs of these new Kandoo wipes. Basically, we told her to use some toilet paper first, then use a couple of the Kandoo wipes, to finish off. The packaging advises flushing no more than 5 Kandoo wipes down the toilet at once.

Lucy had been doing this procedure quite successfully for about 3 weeks, and got quite a way down the packet of Kandoos. In the meantime, I visited my parents in Derbyshire for a week or so, leaving my wife and Lucy on their own. A few days into my relaxing break, I received a phone call with my wife in a blind panic, shouting “there’s sewage all over the back garden!!” After calming her down and running through the procedures, I wasn’t going to cut my relaxing break too short, so as we have 2 toilets in the house which feed through separate drainage pipes, I advised on using the other toilet. We also share an outside drain with our neighbour, so I advised to pass the message onto her.

Prior to all this, we had recently had a new drainage channel cut as we have had a new kitchen sink put in. I automatically blamed the kitchen fitters, so rang them up in a rage. They visited the next day, and looked around, and as always, said “Noth
ing to do with us, our drain pipe is fine.” (as all workmen do).

When I returned from my break, I donned my overalls, wellies, rubber gloves and clothes peg on nose and did some s**t shovelling first of all. I then removed the various drain covers and found that the drain was indeed well and truly blocked. Luckily, my neighbour had a set of flexible “rods”, so I set about feeding those into the drain and wiggling them around. Eventually, the blockage cleared, a quick hose down later and all toilet facilities were returned to normal again! During my rodding, I couldn’t believe how many of the Kandoo baby wipes were floating around the mess (sorry if you’ve just eaten!!) and that they had lodged along the pipework, not disintegrated at all.

Since then, we have not flushed the wipes down the toilet, and have not experienced any further drainage problems! I decided to telephone the “Pampers Careline” and share my experiences with them. The lady was not very helpful, stating that “we have had no other complaints of this nature” (well, they all say that!). She then asked me for the batch number of the product, and said that she would send a pre-paid envelope for me to send in a report, preferably from a qualified plumber!!

On reflection, what I should have done, was to take photographs of the drain whilst I was cleaning it, but you don’t really think of that when you’re knee deep in s**t!!

I remember a while ago when the “Charmin” toilet paper first came out, apparently that blocked up people’s drains and they had to completely redesign the product. Whether or not anything will become of my complaint, I don’t know, but I suggest you watch this space, and if any dooyooers have similar problems with the Kandoos, I would like to hear from you, and so would the Pampers Careline lady!

In the meantime, I suggest you don’t flush this prod
uct down the loo, unlike the frog on the packet, if you use baby wipes either throw them in the bin, or use the adult versions, like the moist Andrex wipes.

Summary: