But this third attempt at regularly posted has been going somewhat smoothly.
Here then is an old blog entry... all issues are resolved now but feel free to laugh at my life from a year and a half ago. - ilene
Today I stayed home to deal with plumbing issues. That's not a euphemism. Real plumbing issues, in my bathroom, in my apartment. And to understand how this has become a recurring theme in my schedule rather you need the history of all things plumbing related over the past two years:
A) My apartment is old. Crumbling old. Pre-war, studio-only, wood church-like doors old. Amazed the building hasn't been condemned and torn down to make way for multi-million dollar condos for newly rich Russians old. It is the origin of all dust on the planet. The floors are warped and the wood slats are cracking and worn. The bathroom tile is dull and chipped and older than John McCain. The ceilings are plaster with paint layers building upon each making the clearance lower and lower. The refrigerator in my tiny kitchen is mint green on the inside, from Aisle 3 at Ozzie & Harriet 'R Us. And the small 4 burner stove perpetually leaks fumes and I'm terrified of doing more than boiling pasta or scrambling eggs on the range; I'd never attempt to bake or roast anything in the cavernous broiler of doom. The kitchen light fixture is a burial ground for insects of tenants past and cleaning is impossible for it would only break the glass, which looks exactly like the ones that used to hang in my grandmothers' homes in Brooklyn homes decades back. The building is ugly. It is falling apart. It's a shithole. But it's my shithole. And it's home.
B) Bathroom issues are nothing new in this building -- especially in the "01" line of apartments. More than twice my super has been summoned to my dwelling to deal with my bathtub filled to the brim with backed-up bilgewater. The owners of the building replaced all the toilets and plumbing fixtures... but there's only so much you can do (refer to Point "A" above noting advanced age of structure.)
C) The woman above me is fucking crazy. And very, very plus-sized. Make no mistake. I'm nowhere near being a petite flower and there isn't a cupcake I don't like but seriously, I'm ballparking her at about 330 lbs. I'm barely surviving this claustrophobic hamster cage of a NYC studio so I really can't begin to imagine how confining her home must be for her. And her cats. Did I mention the cats? She has two. Sometimes I'll be in bed and hear a thud, and then scrambling paws running across the ceiling/floor chasing whatever it is their owner tossed for them to fetch; she asked if I was bothered by the noise and I answered honestly, "no." At the time.
Back to the obesity issue. Yeah, um... see, there's a massive crack in the plaster that is my ceiling, a nine-foot crevice that dwarfs the San Andreas Fault. According to my super, it's the demarcation line noting where BigMama's BED is situated upstairs. Plaster cracks due to weight and pressure but that doesn't mean the wood beams that actually are the floor/ceilings are remotely close to giving way (I keep telling myself that so indulge me, mmmkay?) Also, if BigMama and her SealyPostupedic drop in for a visit in my apartment, she'll land on my Ikea Mini-Desk and sleeper-sofa stacked with clothing which won't injure me in my Princess & The Pea Slice of Heaven Queen Bed on the other side of the room. (It would take out whichever visiting guest was sleeping on the pull-out but I'm only rated a 2-star option on Expedia so you get what you pay for.)
So late last summer, my ceiling began to sweat. First a little dripping, then a lot of streaming and finally, every morning at 7:48, when BigMama was showering, my ceiling morphed into Victoria Falls. Two garbage pails were positioned to claim some of the drippings but they soon were overflowing. And despite numerous calls to my Super, nothing was being done. No, wait -- once I complained that I'd left for work, after the morning downpour, and returned home to find a fresh batch of mushrooms had sprouted from the ceiling while I was on Jury Duty. The super did come in and wipe those 'shrooms away (I found them in the bottom of my garbage pail) but I still don't think he realized just how bad and persistent the dilemma was. In fact, I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes at the jappy tenant in 501 and mumbled something about a pain in his tattooed ass.
But here's the thing - I am so not the problem tenant. So when my phone calls didn't stop and the plaster ceiling above my sick grew more and more bloated and pregnant with water, the super begged management to let him bring some professionals in here right away to deal with the infrastructure (read: make the J.A.P. in 501 leave me the hell alone.) Six weeks after my bitching (ALL of which was legitimate) began, something was finally done. The 'specialists' arrived at my door on the Friday before Labor Day and asked me where my leak was. I explained I'm the receiver, not the giver and to check with BigMama upstairs.
A word about BigMama. And that word would be BITCH. So you know, she was the reason nothing was being done because she insisted SHE didn't have a leak... and stalled and stalled before letting the Super even visit her apartment for a quick look. Plus, she was pissed off to high heaven because SHE had to be inconvenienced and take a day off from work to be AT HOME so she could be there while the plumbers worked. Why couldn't she just leave her key with the super so they could work without her hovering you ask? Oh, yeah right... the aforementioned cats. Seems one of the felines was having some sort of anxiety issues -- it would freak out and attack anyone that came into the apartment so Big Mama had to be present to ensure CrazyAssKitty didn't go berzerker on the handymen. Apparently, she'd been to the vet who prescriped kitty Zoloft and though that seemed to be helping a little, Big Mama was also working with a pet psychologist and animal psychic to explore the root of CrazyAssKitty's issues. But me? Complaining her bathroom had turning into the Amazonian rainforest every time BigMama showered? Yeah. I was the problem tenant.
All I can say is, the specialists turned on BigMama's shower and came downstairs to see what happened in my bathroom. I'm thinking when their only reply is "Holy shit!" I've got the facts on MY side. I have been vindicated. By the end of the day, the leak between floors had been stopped but BigMama was livid -- she lost a day of work, she'd endured workmen in her apartment who were not only messy but who ripped up the tile in her bathroom in order to fix the problem and all the activity and commotion caused the CrazyAssKitty to have a panic attack. Honestly, bitch was pissed off that she was moderately inconvenienced because HER bathing rituals were flooding MY apartment! How in the name of all that his holy is this MY fault? If I didn't think the size/weight ratio was SO in her favor, I'd have slapped the hag.
I went away for the weekend, but returned home on Labor Day to the downstairs tenant telling me that HE had now plumbing issues -- his ceiling was raining but he'd McGyered a tinfoil and papercup concoction that diverted the water into a bucket. Martha Stewart was annoyed because it was a holiday weekend and no one was responding fast enough to his many, many, many snippy messages. Our building's own little Norma Rae, Mr. Fabulous was forever stirring the pot, suggesting we bond together and refuse to pay rent or complain to the authorities about half a dozen different issues whenever he seemed to grow bored with his ill-defined career and habit of indulging his three white dogs, one of which was covered in multi-colored polka-dots. The man has his puppy's hair dyed. Plus, he's lived here forever so he pays maybe half of what I pay for rent each month so, um, shut UP!!!
Since JustJack's leaking problems weren't being addressed immediately and the dripping water was coming from near his overhead light fixtures, he deemed it an emergency. What to do? Call 911, have the local fire department rush over from a block away, take the jaws of life and crack the locked gate to the basement so they could turn off ALL the water to the entire "01" apartment line. Let me just make this point: he's called the fire department before and spent their entire visit judging which firefighter was cutest, so I'm not entirely convinced this call wasn't a ploy to entertain himself on a quiet Monday holiday. THANK GOD the super (who totally charged Mr. Fabulous $500 to replace the gate he had New York's Bravest destroy and fixed the bilgewater backup in 401's tub) turned the water back on -- after all I'd endured, not being able to shower because crazy first floor tenant had a temper tantrum was nowhere close to acceptable.
At least my ceiling was drying out -- the plaster was no longer bloated with water, but it was still distended and misshaped. And the Super promised he'd fix it but that could only happen once it was completekly dried out. So I resolved to endure a few days more of life with a bathroom that looked like an F5 tore through it. New York in the summer is hot and sticky and humid and existing here is gross enough without having to live in a humid, dank, decomposing cesspool. Plus, humidity makes me very, very cranky and miserable. A light at the end of this plumbing nightmare was on its way...
5:26 AM Tuesday
I am awakened to a massive crash followed by a loud crumble. I'm scared shitless. My heart is pounding fast and the organ ready to burst out of my chest. I fumble for my glasses. I turn on the lamp on my nighttable. Nothing. Where did this sound come from? I slowly go to open my bathroom door and there is resistance. I slip my hand in and flip on the light. Now I'm not-quite-awake, terrified and blinded and realize the reason my door wouldn't budge further is because there is DEBRIS blocking it. DEBRIS. I push the debris and will the door open... to discover it is just the tip of the plaster iceberg. My ceiling had COLLAPSED. Think about it -- hello? How could it not?! A water balloon covered in plaster, pricked until all the water seeps out and re-moistens the plaster... the shell will cave in on itself. Duh.
5:35 AM Tuesday
More of the ceiling wanted to join pieces of its family on the floor. A second section drops to the ground, taking out everything resting on the small ledge near the sink, breaking my beloved 10x magnifying mirror and coating everything and filling the bathtub with a layer of dust, plaster and dirt. Lovely.
6:05 AM Tuesday
I'd fallen back to sleep -- my pulse rate had finally come back down to a healthy level and, considerate person that I am, I opted to take digital photos of the destruction but not call my Super until a human hour. Because what could he do now that he wouldn't do in 3 hours and, also? Before I could kick ass and take names, I needed to put on a bra, some pants and maybe a pot of coffee.
6:06 AM Tuesday
What the hell is that creaking? Is there a Scooby-Doo cartoon ghost dragging shackles back and forth in my beaudoir ? No, it's just my bathroom continuing to commit suicide -- a massive chunk of the compromised ceiling is still attached to the south wall by decades of paint layers and was desperately trying to pull away. The creaking was the slow separation of the ceiling from the wall until it stalled mid-collapse, hanging down precariously over my vanity.
Well, I'm up now, aren't I? So I broke out the Canon IS2 camera again and documented the carnage. The only other place you can capture images like this is Fallujah. Weeks of aggravation have come to a head as I download the photos and print out two pages worth, delivering them to the door of the Super, complete with a note that essentially said "You. Now. Fix. Jackass." He was in my apartment by 9am and cleaned up everything. Within 24 hours, he'd ripped down the dangling chads of my ceilings past, put up new sheet rock, replastered and repaired my ceiling. I think he felt bad, and guilty, and embarr assed. He hadn't even SEEN my apartment since those original mushrooms had reared their ugly caps and he's written me off as a girly J.A.P. who called for silly tasks to be done by her own personal Schneider. But now, he realized I hadn't been exaggerating, I wasn't whining and I wasn't crazy.
Ironically, that very morning, when I collected my mail, there was a memo from the NYC Rent Stabilization Board notifying tenants due to capital improvements done to the structure, our rent would be increased monthly, on top of the yearly percentage allowed... and what was one of the Capital Improvements? PLUMBING UPGRADES. I'd laugh if my bathroom didn't look like the Ninth Ward.
Within a week, the Super painted my bathroom in a color of my choice and it looked better than when I first moved in. I flat-out told the Building Management I wouldn't be paying my full rent and deducted the cost of everything their shitty maintenance and lack of response caused: lost work days, loss of mental sanity, damaged towels, shower curtains, bathmats and floor mats... they didn't balk. Especially when I included the photos as evidence and mocked their Capital Improvement rent upgrade for imaginary plumbing improvements. And I also reminded them I'm not the crazy first floor tenant with Dippin' Dots decorated dog calling who has the FDNY Engine 3 on speed dial. And I'm not the belligerent sixth floor tenant with mentally unstable pets refusing access to her apartment, denying any problems and in danger of dropping through the floor into my apartment, taking out my visiting relatives and friends. No one objected to my demands.
Fast Forward to THIS WEEK
When water began seeping out from beneath the base of my toilet Wednesday night, I wasn't surprised; I'd come to expect all things evil from plumbing in this dwelling. I found the super spraying down the sidewalk and he promised to have a plumber here today. Given my track record, I knew I'd be here all day waiting on plumbers who would arrive god only knows when. I planned on not going to my day office and staying at home (also, didn't really feel like heading out into the dreary, rainy day.) The joke was on me when they showed up at 9:01 a.m. A senior (?) plumber was followed by an apprentice, very cute and donning a yalmulke. My plumber answers to a higher authority. One hour, three garbage bags and one roll of paper toweling later, turns out.... this time, they claim it was all MY fault. A lecture on how much and what type of paper can be used in the new toilet and the dynamic doo-doo duo was off. Now, I maintain I do not employ an inappropriate or obscene quantity of toilet paper but don't think I won't be paranoid about the issue from here on out! If Elaine Benes can do with just one square to spare... I can manage as well.
EPILOGUE
By 10:30am, I was alone in my apartment (and could finally take the pee I'd pee I'd been holding in!) but now I had an entire day to get stuff done. Yay, productivity!! I would totally take advantage of the rainy Friday to tackle my "to do" list.
What did I accomplish today?
- One bowl of Chocolate Chex. I could eat it for every meal.
- I read 130 pages of Jen Lancaster's new book SUCH A PRETTY FAT: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big or Why Pie Is Not The Answer. (If I haven't mentioned it before -- LOVE Jen Lancaster, totally brought her baked goods as a gift to her NYC book signing Wednesday night and now, like a dork, have my copy of the latest work autographed 'Ilene - My Official Cupcake Buddy - Jen.")
- I watched the last 1/3 of Pride & Prejudice (Colin Firth as Darcy. Mmmmmm.)
- Dabbled on Facebook. I'm not totally bored by it but I'm weaning off of it.
- Grilled some chicken breast and added it to a Lean Cuisine Chicken in Peanut Sauce entree.
- Called my friend Suzanne for her birthday
- Watched enough of The View to remind me that as long as we could rush Whoopi out to safety first, I'd be more than happy to have the entire studio carpetbombed midshow.
- Watched last night's DVR'd episode of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, who I'm somewhat obsessed with of late. Maybe that's what prompted last week's obsession with traveling to Edinburgh and Glasgow for a vacation I can't afford?
- 2 Mini BabyBel lowfat cheese wheels, several glasses of water and one Granny Smith apple.
- Typing this blog entry. Editing and proofreading it.
- A glass of skim milk with Nestle Quik powder.
To quote my Dad, who knowing how much fun I had in college and yet managed to graduate with a 3.67 GPA, Magna Cum Laude and PhiBetaKappa membership, remarked, "You know, if you ever actually applied yourself to something 100%, you'd be positively frightening."
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