Yuck

You know, my apartment was really great when I first moved in: lots of light, nicely painted, pleasant landlord. Sure, the neighbours in the next apartment changed every few months, and the local kids are, uhm, very gregarious, but overall I was very happy here.

The past year or so though, all kinds of problems have been cropping up. First, there's the roof in the computer room, which leaks copiously whenever there's a heavy rain. Next, there's the stairwell and hallway, which have not been cleaned since at least late last year. The piece de resistance though has been the plumbing.

The penultimate neighbours were two young ladies who were students. Suddenly the pipes started gurgling and getting clogged constantly. Once they moved out though, and the apartment then became occupied by some friends of theirs, the problem ceased- until tonight. Around 9:30, I heard a banging like someone was trying to open the front door, and went to put the safety guard on. I noticed a smell too, but couldn't place it. Then about a half hour later I entered the washroom to brush my teeth before bed and saw the tub was clogged had black gook halfway up it. As I looked in horror, it backed up even further. I immediately called the landlord, who called the plumber.

This team was thankfully in the area, and arrived around midnight. They were more courteous than the last team, who were beyond rude. The one guy was a bit of a pain, because he didn't want to wait for me to clear my kitchen work table, and was insisting that he had to run the snake to the kitchen plug above the table. So things got a tad testy but the Head Honcho was quite good and keep Honcho Jr. in line. B'H', in the end Honcho Jr. discovered that the outlet in the washroom is live and hooked up the snake in there. After about 15 minutes they were done, and I got changed to start cleaning up the expected mess.

As much as I really don't want to move, despite my husband's constant pressure to do exactly that, I will admit to being a bit at wits end about the situation. Whenever I enter the building, its filthiness discourages me. And the plumbing situation is just something I find very difficult to tolerate. I just keep telling myself "Hey, that's Brooklyn"; no matter where you're going to live here, there are going to be problems galore. But every once and a while, I find myself praying that our current neighbours will go the way of their predecessors. Considering that they have been here for about 3 months or so, it should only be a couple of months until we get a replacement set. And it wouldn't be too soon, as far as I'm concerned...

You'll excuse me as I go clean up so that I can finally get to sleep.