I Don't have to Pay for It, neener, neener, neener!

So, there was no hot water. It had been going on for a couple of weeks before we moved in, and it just got fixed TODAY. A month and eleven days later.

I'm not complaining. Those poor apartment manager people, they are the one's who've had all the stress.

Let's see:

Hot water not working in Building C. (C is for Cold in this example). So, they replace the hot water heater. This is a $5000 purchase. But the residents still don't have hot water. So they do a bunch of investigating and discover it's a slab leak. Yes, that's right. The water pipes run under a concrete slab. (We live downstairs in Buliding "C", and I like the concrete slab, by the way. It gives me warm fuzzies and makes me feel secure. There's just something about a house upon a rock...)

So the maintenance guys come to measure the temperature of the floor to try and locate the leak. I thought for sure it would be under our floor. It's so nice and warm on our bathroom floor. Like something from the ancient Roman baths. There MUST be hot water under there.

But no, it's our neihgbor's floor, they think.

Enter the new friend: Jackhammer. So I'm so glad, for about a week and a half, that my lovely tile floor is not getting jackhammered, but also sad for my neighbors whose presumably formerly lovely tile floor is being jackhammered.

And then the apartment managers decide they can't handle it, so they hire some contractors to do the work instead of the maintenance guys. So the contractors start to do the jackhammering next door. But soon, it's our turn, because for all the noise and destruction of neighbor's floors, the leak it not yet located. So, alas, our bathroom floor gets jackhammered. And still they can't locate the leak. So they are drilling in all our floors (the four master bathrooms are arranged like the squares on a foursquare game, in four apartments), and after a day of drilling and digging (Hi neighbors!, we could wave to each other through the hole in the wall, but we don't,) the plumbers have holes in the walls and floors and a nice swirling pool of hot water all around, but still no leak.

Finally they have to remove an entire cabinet and sink from our neighbor's bathroom. That was yesterday. But when I came home last night, there was no standing water in the heat-giving-spring-of-our-bathroom, but rather some tired wet dirt and pipes, surrounded by a gaping hole in the concrete. The toilet is sitting in our tub, and a wad of TP discreetly covers the opening to the sewer line.

But that room is not a sauna anymore (yes, it was damp and steamy from all the leaking hot water), and this morning, I took a HOT shower.

I'm so grateful.

And then today the doorbell rang.

It was the termite guy.

Guess what they found when they busted out the cabinet where the water had been leaking next door?

I reckon eventually I'll get my bathroom repaired.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling rather relaxed about the whole thing, because I DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!!!!!!!!

Comments

Athanasia said…
Thank you for writing this.

This is *exactly* why I say owning a house is wwwaaaayyyy over-rated.

Rent.rent.rent.
elizabeth said…
this is good. too bad about the noise and chaos though. hope it all gets better soon!

i love living in an apartment also for this reason. there is a relief in not having to need to fix things, etc.