drewbear | Dec. 21st, 2004

...but not a drop to shower with.

As long-time readers of this journal know, my apartment has more than its fair share of water-related accidents and damage. Today is possibly the most eggregious example, and may be the straw that forced this camel to move. Aparently, the apartment next to ours is suffering some extreme flooding originating in their bathroom. And by extreme, I mean that it's already soaked about half their apartment.

Anyway, in order to fix this obvious problem, the maintainence staff and a contracted plumbing service needed to shut off the water for the entire building, so no shower for Drew this morning. (I feel quite yecch right now.) Also, since they couldn't find the source of the problem in our neighbors' plumbing, they had to come over here this morning and (among other things), cut a hole in the wall to get access to the pipes and pull the bolted-to-the-wall-I-thought-it-was-built-in vanity away from the wall. Mind you, all the stuff directly relating to my apartment started this morning around 10 AM and it's now 4:00 PM with no end in sight. And until they find the leak(s), they can't/won't turn the water back on. Oh fucking joy.

EDIT: They pulled the vanity away from the wall because they need to jackhammer through the floor to get at the problem pipes. They may need to actually remove/jackhammer through the bathtub. And while they'll clean up & repair all the damage they're doing, it's going to take at least until after Christmas to get everything finished. Let me repeat: Oh. Fucking. Joy.

I don't know whether to feel relieved or anxious that I'm spending Thursday through Sunday down in Houston.

Edit 2: Apparently the lead plumber is a workaholic, and one of his subordinates told me that they won't stop until the leak problem is fixed. And until the leak is fixed, they can't turn the water back on without flooding the neighbor again. The conservative estimate of when the leak will be repaired (not the floor damage, just the leak) is 10 PM to sometime tomorrow morning.

Yeah.

So I packed an overnight bag and I'm staying at my parents' place tonight. And tomorrow I'm going to the apartment offices and laying down a royal shitstorm.

Edit 3 (10:30 PM): I went back over to the apartment to get some work clothes for tomorrow (I forgot; I'm under stress) and the sight that gretted me literally made me weak in the knees. I staggered and had to lean against the wall for a few seconds to regain my composure.

They removed the toilet. They jackhammered 3 holes through the foundation and about 2 feet into the soil below. They put everything they needed out of the way in my bedroom, haphazardly. And they're still not finished.

I'm not renewing my lease, and I'm going to demand at least a partial reimbursement of the rent for the month of December as well as for them to pay for movers to take me and