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As you can see in the picture, in my infinite wisdom, I managed to block the kitchen sink with the stopper by placing it upside down in the sink, now I can't take the stopper out... Oops. Any suggestions on how I could take the stopper out, so I could use the sink again?

The stopper has a vertical wall running through its center roughly 1 cm tall, I was thinking I could pull the darn thing out by latching onto this surface with a grip of some kind. I couldnt do this with my fingers alone.

Inverted Stopper in the sink

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    If you can't do it with your fingers you'll have to use a set of pliers of some type. Feb 22, 2015 at 10:43
  • Use a thin knife along the edge, using the spine side of the knife, not the edged side. I've carefully used this method many times in the past. Feb 22, 2015 at 12:51

7 Answers 7

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You need to use a pair of long nose pliers like this:

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There is also a good bet that an ordinary pair of pliers would do the trick as well:

enter image description here

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Fill void with water and use a toilet plunger. Failing that, you're going to need to drill it and insert a screw.

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  • You mean pour water on top? No water goes through down the sink otherwise, it's fully blocked. Feb 22, 2015 at 14:23
  • @user3670482 - Put water in the sink an inch deep, lift the edge of the plunger head so you can press down to evacuate all the air and water, let it drop and then pull up forcibly on the handle, creating a vacuum over the stopper. The stopper has a pretty large surface area for the vacuum to work on. Don't push down, you'll only push the stopper deeper. Feb 22, 2015 at 17:20
  • You're going to use the plunger to create a vacuum to suck the stopper out. Water is less compressible than air, it will create a stronger vacuum.
    – Mark F
    Feb 23, 2015 at 5:25
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Nail clippers, for anyone reading this in future. It just happened to me with water in the sink. I spent an hour unsuccessfully trying to pry it out with a butter knife. I couldn't find a plunger or pliers, so I used the best thing at my disposal and thankfully it worked. Just open your clippers and rap them around the rubber ridge in the middle of your plug like you're going to cut a nail. Then press the clippers and pull up. It pops out EZPZ.

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happened to me yesterday with a mason jar lid. I filled the other sink and quickly let the water out. The pressure dislodged the obstruction.

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If the stopper is flat and will not pop up, put a drop of super glue on the corner of a note card and glue the card to the stopper. After a few seconds, lift the card and it will pull up the stopper. I just did this and it worked like a charm. When I pulled the card off the stopper, the tiny bit of paper residue was easily scraped off.

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  • Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. Thanks for the answer; keep 'em coming. And, you should probably take our tour so you'll know the details of contributing here
    – Ack
    Apr 5, 2020 at 18:41
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If there is not too much plumbing in the way, you could undo the drain pipe under the sink so that you can push the stopper up and out.

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It happened with me too, just within a week of arrival in the USA. An online tip to use a butter knife on the side of the snapped-in-lid to release the vacuum worked for me. Yes, first taking out the collected water in the sink to see the lid clearly was essential to this process.

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