Pluming saga continues

My mom said that I need to post some pictures of my new apartment... I said I need to get a maid in here first! Alas, no pictures again, but plenty of entertainment!

Journal Entry #3

After the last fiasco with our plumbing, I was told to leave the small bathroom unused until they could fix the problem. I dutifully left it closed up until I came across one of the guys who had been here evaluating the problem (I think he is possibly the assistant manager at the bakery/cafe downstairs). I asked him if the problem was fixed and he said "Coolshee M'zyen" which means "It's all good". So I dutifully went upstairs and announced that the "boys" bathroom was back in order. The girls sighed releif - they were sick of sharing their glorious wall-to-wall pink bathroom (looks like someone vomited pepto bismo in there) with an ickky boy!

Things seemed pretty much back to normal until one night at about 10:30 there came a pounding at the door. The kids were all asleep, I was in my jammies (which is just normal casual dress for the local folk - no problem with answering the door like that) and I could see out the peep hole that my kind, English speaking neighbors were in the hallway. I opened the door to find them waiting with the guardian (the guy who keeps an eye on the building) who wanted them to explain that there is a leaking problem coming from my apartment. I patiently explained that there HAD been a problem but that it was all fixed and, as it was so late, no one had been using that bathroom anyway. But he wasn't satisfied with that answer and wanted to come in to have a look. It turned out that the plunger hadn't gone completely down and the toilet was "running" ever so slightly.

It would have been great if I could have said - "fine, we won't use that bathroom until they get it fixed" and leave it at that. But it took a full 45 minutes of discussion after that to convince the guardian that things were in hand. The next morning I awoke to... yes, you guessed it!... no water in the entire apartment. I thought, "Ok, I can handle this." Late in the day I got to take a shower at a friends house, so I figured I could survive. However my house was quickly falling to pieces - dishes needed to be done, clothes needed to be washed, toilets needed to be flushed... so I asked my friendly neighbor to help again.

We wandered around the building until we finally found, not one, but TWO guardians... and the party ensued. They both came up and had a look, they both took us down to the bakery to show us the leak, they both argued that they couldn't turn the water back on. I feverishly promised not to use the small bathroom and begged to be allowed to do dishes etc. The guardian who seemed to be a bit more in charge relented and agreed to give me 3 hours (9-midnight) of water, then he would turn it off for good. He said a plumber would come in the morning and if that didn't resolve the issue, I would have to appeal to the owners of the building in order to get my water turned back on.

I borrowed buckets from the neighbors and spent an exhausting 3.5 hours scrubbing piles of dishes, mopping the floors, running the washer, and filling buckets. Just as I finished and turned off the lights - the water went off (I wonder if he was watching the windows to see when the lights went off.) I tumbled into bed, exhausted... expecting to wake up to a rough day of in-home-camping. However, the girls announced that the water was on and working fine. It still is. The plumber never did come. Needless to say, we don't use the small bathroom anymore... and probably never will!