I was reading about venting issues and what the symptoms are of that... in almost every case you get things like bubbling toilet... surging sound... and slow draining... I don't have any of that... YEARS ago I do remember hearing a surging sound on occasion but I haven't heard that in years...
On the phone with my dad... He did bring up a possibility... He asked if I checked the bolts where the toilet is bolted to the floor... I said no... He said check those to see if they are loose...but he said be super careful not to over tighten if they are loose... I went to check and one of the nuts I could still turn with my finger.. so I tightened that having no clue if I didn't tighten it enough or too much... but enough that I needed a wrench and could no longer move it with my finger... I definitely stopped before I felt like it was too much... we'll see if that was it... I'll give it a while to see if I see a leak again...
I never thought to check that... It blows my mind the plumber left it that loose.. it almost makes me wonder if that could have been the issue to begin with since I never thought to check how tight the bolts were before even calling a plumber...
Having installed many toilets, in my experience if a leak like this happened I'd pull the toilet and replace the wax ring then tighten it down properly. That is another reason I prefer the newer style rings. Also a prime example of why not to caulk around the toilet.
I watched an I Lucy episode and was under the impression when Fred Merton came into Lucy and Ricky's bathroom to fix their faucet (said Lucy: "Why the rush? It's only been leaking for six weeks?) that I needed a heavy wrench to fix a faucet just to realize you don't use heavy plumbing tools for a dainty chromed bathroom spigot...
The way that apartment building in that show is that big, and probably had many floors, and stuff was likely to always break, it's a wonder you didn't see Fred al,out always dressed like that carrying his tool box...
So congratulations Mark, for realizing what you can and in this instance, can't fix and put your house hold fixtures in good hands...