My Husband Got Shit For His Birthday

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

For the past several years, we seem to have been under a "when it rains, it pours" cloud that only seems to dump on us in November and December. The day before Drama Kid's first birthday the nanny we had at the time quit with no notice. A few days after that the owner of our apartment put it on the market giving us one month to move out or buy. Then Drama Dad totaled his truck. In the years since, Drama Dad has been laid off of two jobs, cars have needed major repairs and I lost my job. Happy Holidays!

This year, we thought we'd escaped the downpour and spoke too soon. Last Saturday we were deciding where to go for hubs' birthday dinner when the shit hit the fan. Literally. One of the downstairs toilets has been stopping up fairly often the past few weeks. I was on the computer and Drama Kid used the loo next door. I could tell by the sound that it was in danger of overflowing. I'm now an expert at overflow stoppage and was able to avoid any spills.

Drama Dad hauled out the plunger again and went to work. And then he said "we're going to need a plumber," and I could swear I heard our credit card commit suicide and plumbers all over the city mark up their "weekend emergency service" prices.

I went into the bathroom and saw this:



You can thank me later for not getting a closer shot. Know what's worse than a bathtub full of shit? Two bathtubs full of shit! Where is Mike Rowe when you need him?


And those baskets on the floor? The ones full of toiletries that used to fit in the master bathroom cabinets at our last apartment but not our house? Yep, they were in the tub. Hubs went to get the phonebook and I tried to stifle my gag reflex and breathe through my mouth.

Roto Rooter arrived, opened up the clean out drains and sent down a snake ($125). The snake made it far enough to relieve the pressure and allow the tubs to drain, but there was still a blockage. We agreed to the extra charge to have a camera sent in (condo colonoscopy) and fully expected them to remove broken toy parts or evidence of some of Drama Kid's mischief. But the diagnosis was worse: tree roots had broken through the pipe. The new estimate? $650. Happy Birthday honey!



After I regained consciousness I was all prepared to start returning the few Christmas presents I've bought and find a way to hock some jewelry when our neighbor came over and asked if we were having plumbing problems.
We got him up to speed on what Roto Rooter had said and done so far then went door to door to ask if anyone else was having problems too but everyone was out. We asked the Rooter man to hold off on anymore work until we called the HOA since the blockage was more than 50 feet from our house. Birthday dinner and Christmas are saved!

To make a long, shitty story short, the HOA is responsible for the repairs and they will reimburse us the $325 we spent. It took much scrubbing before I would even think about taking a shower. My hands smelled like bleach until yesterday which is totally preferable to the alternative!

What about you? Do crises seem to happen to you all at once? Have you ever had a bathtub full of poo?

10 comments:

  1. *blech* *shudder* EEEWWWW and YUCK!

    And I would have been kissing that lovely neighbor for saving me all that money, that's for sure!

    Oh, and Happy Birthday Drama Dad! :)

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  2. OMG. I'm so sorry. That is awful.

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  3. Oh my God. I have a poo thing, and that totally did me in. I need to bleach my computer monitor STAT.

    Still, sorry about the poo issues. BUT (hee hee!) good thing HOA will reimburse!

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  4. I'm glad someone else is paying for it--too bad you couldn't get someone else to clean it up.

    We had a $5,000 plumbing problem once--5 feet one way and homeowner's would have covered it, 5 feet the other way and it would have been the city's problem. Where it was? Our dime. Argh.

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  5. How Awful! All my crisis happen in 3's so I can never catch a break.
    I'm glad the HOA is at least paying for it.

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  6. My Teen flushed a toilet cleaning sponge down her toilet -- not the flushable kind...

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  7. They just don't make drains like they used to. My kids used to flush all KINDS of things down the toilet (a cloth diaper, a whole size 11 1/2 jelly shoe, Many various stuffed animals)

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  8. never a bath tub full of poo... however nov, dec and jan are usually a tough month for us as well.

    happy that the hoa is taking care of the problem! Good luck with the rest of the crazy season!

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  9. This is EXACTLY what happened at our place on the night of the election. It took two plumbers and three days of digging up our yard to get to the root of the problem...like you, literally, the root of the problem--tree roots in the pipes. I won't even tell you how much it cost to fix ours, and none of it will be reimbursed...

    So can I just say I feel your pain, and mean it? :) Hope things are settling down again...

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  10. Totally feeling your pain...we've had multiple plumbing mishaps in our home, and overall, have spent in excess of $10K in repairs just in the past couple of years...I won't even try to add the TOTAL costs we've incurred since owning our lovely home. *sigh*

    So glad for you that the costs will be covered by HOA, and Christmas can continue as planned!

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