One tiny thing that Pee and his family wasn’t entirely aware of, as well as poor Bentworth Sadnick, was that the Old Portal was indeed… old.
An ancient generation’s which allowed only transfer of biological entities, whereas all things manufactured, such as the latest shiny head-fasteners, wouldn’t be passed through the portal.
This would have explained to the inquiring minds why there was an inordinate amount of plastic garbage in front of the rusty and Old Portal to the Eighth Dimension.
But no one thought of asking, forgetting for the most part that the elastics of their pants were made mostly of inorganic stuff…