I have…. THE FEAR.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

I am currently in the grips of THE FEAR once more. And no, this isn’t a Hunter S. Thompson thing.

The last place we lived in had A Problem in the bathroom. Namely, the toilet upstairs leaked and ruined the ceiling in the bathroom we were looking at. Nesko and I pointed out the damage and the building manager assured us that it had been fixed. I assumed he meant the leak and pointed out the water damage to the ceiling and walls and what looked a bit like mold. It took a bit of pointing to get him to see what I was talking about, and then he blithely assured us that it would be fixed before we moved in, and that in fact the entire apartment would be repainted.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t, and it hadn’t been.

By which I mean, the apartment wasn’t repainted, the water damaged/moldy patches weren’t fixed, and the toilet upstairs still leaked.

The toilet upstairs was directly above the toilet downstairs. Which meant that every time I used the toilet, I had to worry about somebody else’s toilet water leaking on me. Nesko only had to worry about it when he pooped because, being a guy, he can pee standing up. The only place I can pee standing up is the shower, and I was not about to start clambering in there every time Nature played her golden horn, calling me to service.

I soon started living in Anxious Fear. That water was cold! And disgusting! And carried rotting bits of ceiling! And was fucking TOILET WATER I mean SERIOUSLY.

We complained about it multiple times, switched building managers, complained to the new guy who even came out and looked at it and said that yeah it was a serious problem… and it never got fixed. I’d given birth (by which I mean had my child surgically removed from my body, no man of woman born) in that time, and if you haven’t gone through the whole child birth thing, your plumbing doesn’t work very reliably just afterward. And I was in serious pain and in NO MOOD to deal with leaky toilet ceiling shenanigans. We wound up moving out a month early, using our security deposit as last month’s rent, something we’ve never done before. The situation was just intolerable.

So we moved into a very charming 2-flat in a neighborhood we used to live in some ten years ago, managed (and owned) by my in-laws. Which meant, among other things, that we’ve been able to paint this place and oh my GOSH it feels so much like home already and we’re nowhere close to done yet. But when we moved in, half the ceiling in the bathroom was missing.

You see, there’d been a toilet leak, and nobody (upstairs tenants or downstairs) had mentioned it until part of the ceiling came crashing down. Nesko and his dad had fixed the upstairs toilet, it wasn’t leaking any more, but the ceiling in the bathroom was ten kinds of spooky. As part of our moving in, my dad ripped the whole ceiling out, which possibly wasn’t the best choice of jobs for a guy with asthma. A short while later, my father in law installed green board, but it still hasn’t been taped up or plastered, the first step to getting our bathroom finished (we want to paint, possibly replace the bathroom cabinet, and put up some shelves and towel bars).

It turns out it’s kind of a good thing nobody has finished the bathroom ceiling yet, because I was using the toilet the other day when water started cascading down upon me.

Once again, we’re living with a leaky toilet over head, shunting cold filthwater down upon whoever’s on the toilet.

And, once again, I have The Fear about using the potty. I really don’t need this extra shot of anxiety when faced with nothing more nerve wracking than pooping.

(My father in law already came by to check the situation out once, and is aware now that it wasn’t just a one-off thing but ongoing so he’s going to investigate further. I have every confidence that this will be resolved soon, but in the mean time, I might start making special bathroom trips to Somewhere Else. Or not. I do have a toddler with me all the time.)