What is that?!?

Long story short - this is what Johnny pulled out of our plumbing pipes...(For the not-so-short story, read on...) So, three weeks after we moved in, the plumbing clogged so badly that we had raw sewage backing up into our tubs. Johnny tried plungers, he bought a snake and then even rented a heavy-duty snake from Home Depot. But to no avail. Finally a plumber came out and after a few attempts got it so everything drained. Whew. We sanitized everything and were grateful it was done. Well, two weeks later it all happened again. Johnny had had a pretty bad day, so this was just the icing on the cake. He was determined to fix it himself. So he rented another snake from Home Depot which was broken, exchanged it for another one and hauled it up on the roof (they are very, very heavy) and snaked it down one of the toilet vents (where the plumber had finally been successful before). But it didn't work. He eventually tried another spot and lo and behold he caught something and everything drained. When he pulled the snake back out, it drug out a big rubber black ball, connected by two inches of a small chain, then two cables - one yellow and one black with an air valve on it. No wonder the plumbing was backing up - the black ball was similar to the ones in toilet tanks and was as big as the pipe. Why in the world that was there, we'll never know. But it was truly a miracle that the snake caught one of the chain links. After describing our catch to some plumbers we learned that it is a device called a test ball used to test water pressure, etc. They are expensive gagdets and the plumber should have told us he lost his in our pipes. Johnny's cousin Ryan (a plumber) said he has never known of anyone who has been able to snake those things out. Usually they dig up the pipe and cut it out. Again - a miracle he snaked it out. Oh, and don't worry. We've sanitized everything again!!