Water Woes

The major problems in our house all have something to do with water. Every drain in our bathroom is messed up. There is a leak in the basement from the pipe under the bathtub drain. After a leak from our toliet messed up the floor, the toliet itself rocks when you sit on it and the floor underneath the toliet needs replacing. Our bathroom faucet drips and the water leaks from the pipe under the sink. We have a dishpan under the pipe to catch the water. However, if the dishpan overflows, the water seeps through the bottom of the sink cabinet and into the basement.

Yes, water has caused our home a lot of problems...but not nearly as many problems as times without any at all. On Thursday, our water went out twice for a couple of hours each time. This was because of repairs they were doing in our neighborhood. Other houses in the neighborhood were without water as well. The thing about this is that the city failed to contact anyone about the water being shut off. We didn't get a phone call, a letter, or even so much as a truck with someone yelling out of a bullhorn. The Water Department did not answer any calls it received that day.

Then, things got worse on Friday. At about noon, our water went out again. My dad, after seeing people not use their hoses outside, assumed that this meant that they were doing work again. However, the water remained out for more than four hours. When my dad called my mom (who was at my grandmother's house preparing for something I'll mention in my next post), she suggested that he call around to make sure the water was out in the neighborhood. He called and we found out that we were the only house without water. What pissed all of us off was that our water bill was paid. Paid paid. My dad recently paid the bill with a check. The check bounced and he then paid the bill with cash. Then the bounced check was put through again. In other words, we ended up paying the water bill twice. We have a credit on our account. Our water should not have been close to being shut off.

My dad found out about the other neighbors' houses having water while we were out getting dinner. We immediately rushed to City Hall (which fortunately was close to the area where we were) and looked to see if anyone around could help us. It was already after 5:30 and most of the municipal services had already closed for the holiday weekend. We went to the police department (which was still open) and got an officer to call the Public Works department. The guy from Public Works told us that they had not performed any shutoffs because they don't do them during holidays. My dad got quite peeved (not pissed, just peeved) as the man (via the telephone conversation with the officer) asked if we had messed with our shutoff valve (we didn't). In the end, the man agreed to send a person over to our house.

Sometime after 6:30 p.m., the Public Works person showed up and our water was turned back on. My dad avoided having to go to my grandmother's house to clean up for work and the family avoided having to stay at a relative's place because of a lack of water for the holiday weekend. As many water-related problems as we have in our house, we cannot do much without it.