Wednesday 26 March 2008

Thank God I was too lazy to have cleaned my bathroom

Well so much for continuing my streak of managing to get a full seven hours of uninterrupted sleep and therefore not feel like crap at work. There was drama Chez Fish last night kids. There I was, settled on the sofa, relaxed and awaiting the start of The Daily Show when I heard a noise coming from the vicinity of my kitchen and bathroom – my bathroom is off my kitchen. You’ve gotta love the bizarrely confabulated apartments of New York City.

Cautiously I went to investigate…

Urk…water, horribly disgusting dirty brown water, was pouring, nay gushing it was like someone had turned a faucet on full, through my bathroom ceiling directly through the light fitting.

Not good!!

I emptied a bucket full of cleaning equipment onto the kitchen floor and positioned it where the stream was strongest to try and catch most of the water, although it was coming through everywhere, before dashing upstairs to let my neighbour know what was happening. I could hear water running as I stood outside her door waiting for someone to answer the bell and assumed she was in the shower, unaware of the fact that she was flooding my bathroom, but then I heard footsteps and a loud ‘oh my God.’

She fumbled with the lock and opened the door looking stunned. She motioned me inside to see her bathroom. If mine was gushing, hers was like Niagara Falls. I had about 3inches of water on the floor of my bathroom seeping out into the kitchen, but there was easily 4times the volume pouring through her bathroom ceiling. She hadn’t been aware of it until I knocked on her door as she’d gone to bed at 10pm and was fast on. I left her standing there shocked in her pyjamas as I dashed upstairs to the sixth floor, the top floor of the building, and hammered on the door of #28.

No answer.

Visions of someone having slipped and knocked themselves out cold - or worse - with the tap running ran through my head.

I’ve watched too many episodes of CSI I really have.

As I ran back downstairs to phone the landlady I ran into Vinny, her brother who lives in the apartment below me and owner of the pizzeria. He ran in to check the state of my bathroom before dashing off to turn the water off and see what was going on with number #28, while I was left to soak up as much of the water I could with old beach towels.

Finally the water abated and Vinny returned to check on the light fixture in my bathroom and check for any the damage. Vinny is not by any stretch a small man, he’s well built and of ample girth and unfortunately as he bent down to examine the floor his trousers slipped and I was given a full on flash of his big hairy arse. Ugh!! That was the cherry on top of this particular Tuesday evening sundae I can tell you. It’s a wonder I didn’t have nightmares.

Fortunately there was nothing serious and we didn’t have to call in Gil Grissom and team. The pre-teen kid of the family in the apartment on the 6th floor had been taking a bath as the rest of the family slept and had managed to flood the bathroom. Vinny told me that the water had gone through all the apartments below them and had even leaked through the ceiling of the pizzeria on the ground floor. No permanent damage, but I was up late cleaning the mess up and my apartment has that uniquely stale aroma that can only come from being doused in the used bathwater of a pre-teen boy and then filtered through 2floors of a pre war apartment building.

Joy!!

10 comments:

Flowers said...

that's great that you can be so upbeat about it. how the hell did the kid manage to flood the bathroom so badly? having a ciggie out of the window, was he? hmmmmm.

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hey Flowers, ah what can you do. If you don't laugh you'll cry. I suspect I'll never really get to know exactly how it happened, but he could well have been sneaking a ciggie. I'll bet he's in big trouble though. Vinny was not at all happy.

Spandrel Studios said...

My gosh, Fish, what a nightmare! Hope none of your belongings were trashed from the overflow.

And kudos to you for the good humor despite the mess!

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hi Spandrel, nothing was ruined thankfully...well, except for the 3 towels I used to mop up the filthy water. I didn't thin I could bear to use them again the dirt would be so ingrained so I threw them out.

Unknown said...

Urgh! Did you have to be quite so graphic with the ass description!

I would have dragged the teen down to mop up all the other bathrooms

Sid said...

You're kidding me! I really, honestly thought that this story was going to end badly. I had visions of dead bodies in the bath tub.

Kitty said...

Man. That sucks.
Thankfully they were able to shut the water off in a jiff.
Glad you're all right, Fish!

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hi Sarah, accidents happen. There's never been any other issues with the kid before, I'll give him a break this one time.

Hi Sid, were you disappointed by the ending :-) As all this was going on I could hear sirens getting closer and I thought they might be heading for us, but then they zoomed on by and I remembered that I always hear sirens in NYC.

Thanks Kitty, it's been a bit of a pain, but thankfully the aroma has dissipated now and things are pretty much back to normal :-)

Blur Ting said...

Oh dear, that sounded real bad yet you were so calm. You've handled it so well :-)

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Thanks Blur Ting :-)