Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Saga of the misbehaving drain


One Thursday, Linda forgot to put the clothes washer drain hose into the toilet causing a massive flood in our downstairs bathroom, with water flowing out into the kitchen area as well. Because the water wouldn’t drain out through the clogged pipes, we were bailing water with a large dust pan and plastic pan. We called the landlord and he came to find us still getting 2-3 inches of water out of the bathroom floor. He brought the magic acid, which worked a miracle the month before by cleaning out the pipe (after a small explosion), but it did nothing this time. He hired some workmen who used a plumbing snake with no success. They ended up breaking up our cement backyard in several places looking to find the drain pipe leading from the bathroom. No success. Finally the owner called the city to come flush the drain pipes. They came and looked, made an appointment to come on Monday and ended by telling us not to let water down our drain pipes. We thought, “It’s only a few days, it’ll be OK.”
The appointed time came and went with no workmen & no city truck. We called to find out the reason for the delay. We were told that they workmen would not come. What!!! Didn’t we schedule an appointment 3 days before? When Linda heard this she started crying not knowing when we’d be able to take showers, wash our hair and wash dishes without having to use buckets and pouring the used water in the toilet. She called the landlord and he said that he had already filled out the right paperwork. He then called the city and found out that the workmen were helping their supervisor build a house, but they would stop and come help “today”. As we sat down for lunch, the workmen did come with their large red water truck to flush the drains (picture is of a similar truck). Hallelujah, success!! It’s been one day and water is still flowing down the bathroom drain pipe and no flooding.