Plumbing part II

If only the plumbing story ended there. It wouldn't be so bad, right? Well... no such luck. For a couple weeks I had been hearing a muffled dripping noise coming from the bathroom sink. This sink had always drained rather slowly, but over time there grew a definte link between the amount of water and the mysterious noise behind the sink. The odd thing was, when you opened up the cabinet, there was no visible evidence of drips or leaks. This particular bathroom vanity had been "designed" with a makeshift false wall under the cabinet set about 6 inches from the back board and the bathroom wall. This partition hid the pipes as well as the unfinished wall, plus, it prevented anyone from getting a good look at the underbelly of the sink and spotting any potential problems. So, as far as I could see--which wasn't very far--everything looked okay. I didn't think the management would really jump on the case of "maybe a possible leak" since it took them weeks to deal with a real, actual, definite, dripping-in-your-face leak. We let it go, and for a while nothing changed. Then one afternoon I walked into the bathroom and noticed that the floor was wet.

In a room the size of a closet, it's pretty easy to figure out where the stream of water is coming from, especially when you already have a hunch. Sure enough, the cabinet under the sink was brimming with gooey liquid, which had finally started to leak out of the corners and cracks in the cabinet. The particle board wall had initially been holding back (and hiding) the puddle of water until it's weak fibers were so saturated they gave out.

Another leak, another call to the apartment manager, another long wait for the workmen to show up. I have a suspicion that their untimeliness is all part of the plan. You have to wait so long for them to come and fix the problem that when they finally do you are so grateful you forgive the inconvenience they've put you through and the mess they leave behind. They wound up having to replace most of the piping under the sink and they left behind scraps of plaster and wood as well as a layer of grime over everything in the room. Part of me wanted to call the apartment manager and politely request that they send someone back to clean up the wreck they'd left after "fixing" the problem, but I knew in my soul that the effort expended in such a call would be entirely futile. So I got out the Clorox spray, sponge, mop, and roll of paper towels and scrubbed until it looked, well certainly not "like new," but decent.

In addition to the bathroom floor and an unlucky tub mat, there were some objects under the sink that were caught in the (third) leak of 2010. A scrub brush, plastic trashcan, and bottles of household cleaner faired pretty well, what did not was the large multipack of toliet paper recently purchased by my roommate and stored under the bathroom sink. The water had soaked up through the packaged stack of t.p. until all that was left dry was the very top layer of rolls (about 4 out of 24). We laid the wet ones out on the floor for a couple days, hoping they might dry and still be usable, but the only thing that happened was that they condensed into solid bricks of paper pulp and began to smell slightly mildewy. After several days of sitting like a little graveyard of toliet paper, the entire lot was unceremoniously dumped in the garbage. Despite the annoyance of the whole situation, I think I will always smile a little when I think of the evenly spaced lines of toliet paper set out of the floor, each one a slowly sinking, slowly graying sad, nameless tombstone.

Plumbing part I

Cleaning jobs I can do, but a plumber I am not. So while I was able to (slightly grudgingly I'll admit) handle the vacuuming, dusting, moping, debris-removal, and various other stages in the sanitation process, some of the apartment's initial problems were out of my depth. Like, for example, the kitchen sink. When you turned the sink on, water literally poured through a hole in the underside of the fixture straight into the cabinet underneath. After sponging out several inches of standing water from the cabinet and off the kitchen floor, a plastic trash can became a temporary drainage system. It wasn't a perfect set up by far, however, and because the falling water bounced off various pipes and the bottom of the sink basin, it was impossible to catch every drop of misplaced water.

The tub was half-heartedly cleaned of plaster shavings by one of the work men a day or so after we moved in, but as it turned out, the tub faucet leaked too and they needed to repair this before a new layer of finish could be placed on the tub. Both parts for sink and tub should be easy to procure, the apartment manager assured us; they would just have to send one of the maintenance guys around to a local supplier and then could get finished... or rather, started.

Of the two problems, the sink was definitely more pressing (after all, the tub leaked into the tub), so thankfully that was the issue they decided to fix in a semi-timely manner. A couple days later we had a working kitchen sink! (Amazing how much you appreciate the little things.) There are permanent stains in the cupboard under the kitchen counter from the dingy water, but months later no more leaks! (...in the kitchen)

Back to the tub. That one little, easy-to-find piece of plumbing took them weeks to come up with. (They switched their story about a week after the initial prognosis and started to tell us that due to the age of the building--and the ancient plumbing--the part they needed was going to take a special order.) Finally, more than a month after we moved in, the faucet stopped leaking and the workmen were back to do an (extremely shoddy) sealing job on the tub. The sealer went on roughly and started peeling almost right away. Six months later there are some very large cracks in the bottom, and a section or two have entirely pulled away from the tub's surface.

Day One Again

It's been such a long time, the details are fading into each other and what seemed like catastrophes at the time have settled into minor disasters. The string of conincidences that we encountered when we first moved in to the apartment were painful and entertaining. Despite the expansive time gap, these incidents definitely belong in the blog, so I'm going to try to remember and record some of the early episodes.


When I went to look at the apartment, the building manager told me it was nearly ready for a new tenant; they just needed about eight days to finish up a few things, like cleaning, polishing the wood floors, and re-sealing the tub.

My keys were supposed to be coming in the mail (which sounds a little sketchy and probably should have been the first warning sign). Three days before we were supposed to move in I was still keyless, and I was getting nervous because the weekend was coming up. So I called the leasing office. They assured me that the keys had been overnighted, and when I expressed my doubts they said that if for some reason they didn't come I could have someone from the leasing office let me into the apartment when I moved in on Monday. I pointed out that this wouldn't work since we had agreed I would move in on Sunday (and the management office would be closed). This began a secondary back-and-forth in which they tried to tell me the move-in date was Monday, and I maintained that it had always been Sunday.

We finally decided that yes, move-in was, in fact, Sunday. With the key situation still somewhat up in the air, I went home praying that the keys would arrive in time. Thankfully, they did. (Though, it can be added, they were post-marked after the day the leasing agent claimed to have mailed them, but whatever, they made it.)

Feeling like things were finally on the right track, I packed and brought an SUV of stuff up to DC on a chilly day at the end of February. As we entered the apartment it was quickly apparent that very little "work" had been done on the place and of what they had started nothing had been finished. The apprehension I had pushed resolutely out of my head came trickling back in, grinning impishly and humming a taunting tune.

The layer of dust and dirt that had accumulated after the apartment sat unoccupied for a year was still spread across floorboards and window sills. The tub was full of plaster shaving from where someone had started chipping off the old finish, but hadn't gotten around to cleaning and applying the new coat. The signs that everything was still a work in progress were accentuated by the sandwich someone had left in the fridge and the empty soda cans on the kitchen counter. As calmly as possible, I took stock of everything, pulled out my tiny vaccuum cleaner, and started to clean.

Noisy November

On the first of November, our heat was turned on. This seems pretty standard and I for one was quite happy to feel the old radiators slowly starting to warm the room. What I didn't remember from the couple of months when we needed them at the beginning of the year was what a racket they make. I've lived in a number of old buildings throughout my life (college dorms anyone?) and for the most part am very pro-radiator, but I can't remember ever having one that was so noisy! It's not just the gentle hissing of rising steam, these units bubble and swish and oddest of all make strange metallic clanging sounds. Seriously, I can't help but imagine little tiny workmen inside with hammers and wrenches banging on the walls of the pipes and listening appreciatively to the ringing echoes. One of the radiators occasionally spews spurts of (very) hot water out onto the floor (which is fortunately linoleum). Another has no adjustment knob, and the bracket where one should be has been painted into immobility. The cats watch these metal beasts cautiously, with huge eyes and muscles tensed to leap away the instant the monster comes to life.

I really dislike being cold; don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and snow and drinking hot chocolate on a crisp winter day, but when I'm in my apartment I want to be warm. So if I have to pick cold and quiet or warm and noisy... I'll just have to learn to live with the radiator gremlins.

(The good news; active radiators means the hot water is on. And there was much rejoicing!)