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.
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