THE GREAT TOILET FIASCO

Oh, the perils of having just one toilet!

Today, I present to you the ridiculous story of our Great Toilet Fiasco. It happened almost a year ago, and I’ve wanted to tell you about it since! But life got real crazy and yadda yadda. Anyway, I thought I’d let the truth unfold for you as it did for my family members, who pieced together what was going on through the text messages they received as I encountered it in real time…

*Note for context— at this point, the family was aware that our one and only toilet had been experiencing some troubles… they’d been at our apartment a few nights before for a Halloween party during which we forgot to tell them to refill the toilet’s water tank between flushes using the bucket we placed under the tub faucet, hidden behind our shower curtain. We realized one of our party guests had been missing for over thirty minutes, at which point he returned to the patio, shirt soaking wet and his hair crazed as if he’d been anxiously pulling at it. His apologetic, worried look said he thought he had destroyed our toilet. We couldn’t help but laugh— we forgot to give our guests a heads-up!

The following texts were copied and pasted right from my family group chat. (These are the messages I sent to them… Enjoy.)

October 16th, 2023 1:37PM

TOILET UPDATE: we ordered a replacement piece and fiancé came home for lunch to fix the toilet. Well, now the water won’t shut off and we have a plumbing leak! Sink in kitchen is leaking, too. It’s gonna be Water World here soon. Luckily no nasty sewer water, just the water lines are leaking. Stay tuned…

So our maintenance repairman goes into our bathroom to check it out (we have wet towels all over and a bucket catching the water leak) and then comes right back out and goes, “You need a bigger bucket.” LOL

Maintenance had to call a plumber because they can’t turn the water leak off

I changed my 15 min “Drink Water” timer to a 7 min “dump bucket” timer…

Maintenance guy said he came right away soon as he saw it was us who submitted the “emergency plumbing” maintenance request cuz we’re his favorite tenants 💃🏻

We “never give him trouble or ask for anything” lol (probably its because we gave him beer one time)

OMG that’s probably why he came over that one day and randomly said, “Hey, you guys want a garage?”

By the way, he told us he’s still waiting on the gate fob… apparently those things are being sold on the black market. There is so much in the world of apartment maintenance we do not know 😆

October 16th, 2023 7:26PM

So two plumbers came today. They spoke Spanish and mumbled everything, so I had no idea what they were saying. Also, they weren’t very bright (the one dude couldn’t figure out how to open the door to the patio and then walked into the screen door 😜)… They didn’t inspire much confidence

But they “fixed” the water leak (it’s worse than at the Halloween party but technically usable). Tomorrow we will figure it out.

October 23rd, 2023 3:01PM

PLUMBING UPDATE

The apartment maintenance guys are back (the ones who walked into the screen door). Soon as I open the door, head guy walks right inside, gives me a sheepish giggle and says “sorry” then goes right in to the bathroom with his assistant, shuts the door and starts emitting these sounds…

Then after 30 min he comes out of the bathroom and finds me to say, “well, you have a problem with your toilet and it’s weird” 🤣

At least he speaks English!

Now he says he has to leave and he’s trying to assure me with this piece of paper towel that since the towel is dry, there’s no problem. He’ll be back to fix the issue either today or tomorrow… So I ask, “Can we use the toilet?” He says, “Yes, but I’m coming back,” and then just leaves. 😑

Oh snap, he’s already back with Tweedle Dumb and they’re doing God knows what in there…

OMG and now they’re hammering real heavy 🥲

They’re still here and they keep filling a trash bag with things from the bathroom… I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at what’s happened in there yet 🙃

I just went in there… They had to take out the wall behind the toilet! 😱

They had to remove some of the water line? Because it was clogged up with rocks?

🤣🤣🤣 THIS IS SO RANDOM

I tried to film secretly but I had the worst angle so here’s a screenshot:

How many people does it take to destroy a wall? How the hell did rocks get in there?!

Poor guy seemed relieved to find rocks because he said, “It wasn’t my fault!”

Haha, this is so damn entertaining

LOOK AT ALL THE ROCKS!

He said this line was hooked up to the neighbors somehow and that if we had waited any longer we would have flooded their apartment 🙃

He said they spilled some water in the massive hole in the wall and that we should probably aim a fan in there. They’ll send someone to come fix it, probably tomorrow

THE TOILET SAGA CONTINUES!!! Bahahahaha damn

*At this point, my family was asking me many questions, which I was also asking myself.

I don’t know I honestly don’t know

Maybe our neighbor has a kid? and the kid put rocks in there? I have no idea lol

Their accents are very strong and they mumble. I can’t even understand the Spanish they’re speaking to each other, and usually I can speak basic Spanish!

*My brother responded, “Didn’t you take Spanish in college and in high school? The waste of education! The waste of our parent’s money! Now you can’t fix the plumbing because you don’t understand. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND IT!?!

LMAO, my family is insane

The repair guy said, “You are now good!” and he ducked out of here so fast

I cleaned up as much as I could…

The toilet refills quickly but with a broken piece in the tank that sprays water everywhere! Still not fixed. For now, we let the toilet pee after we do. 🤣

So, I discovered this protruding water line is now leaking ever so slightly… DEAR LORD LET IT BE OVERRR

*The next day, Fiancé and I spoke with the main office to bring them up to speed on the toilet fiasco and remind them of the gaping hole behind our porcelain throne. They were shocked at what those goofy plumbers did! The head maintenance guy asked what the repairmen’s names were. I said I couldn’t understand them because they mumbled so much, but I took a picture... He zoomed in on the name tag from the pic of the guy holding up the pebble-clogged water line and said, “I KNOW WHO THAT IS. He’s never coming back here again…”

It turns out those “plumbers” who destroyed the wall and caused issues for us and the neighbors (we share a water line) were ON DRUGS and NOT EVEN REAL PLUMBERS! Maintenance assured us they’d send REAL plumbers to fix our issue tomorrow… but now I was dying to know the backstory with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb! I didn’t want to push my luck, though, since the head maintenance guy seemed to be revisiting unpleasant memories at that point.

October 30th, 2023 11:13AM

THE TOILET IS FIXED! They sent real plumbers this time and now it refills in about 30 seconds

They were totally flabbergasted when they saw the mess those other guys left for them. Said “I have no idea what the hell happened here, but we will fix it.”

Ahh, the comforting presence of competence 💖

Apparently something became disconnected and that was the issue… aside from everything the other “plumbers” did

They fixed the hole in the wall today, too

THANK THE LORD!!!

*At this point, the family was chiming in with humorous comments about the color of the paint on the wall and that it looks like a battle took place there… LMAO. We were just glad to have a working toilet and no more gaping holes in the wall!

A few days after the fiasco had been handled, we ran into the head maintenance guy while walking home. He updated us. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb had somehow screwed up the plumbing in the apartment behind ours. The tenants were on vacation, and their water pressure was nonexistent when they returned. If any water did manage to come out, it was boiling hot! They had to move into the pool house on property while their apartment was being fixed! He swore again that he’d never let those “plumbers” on the premises again…

I suppose the moral of this story is that a broken toilet can be fixed, but a good laugh will flush away the stress. 😉

Until next time, Gigglers!

Sincerely,
Alexa

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P.S. I want to put my serialized zany spy comedy “Over the Top Secret” behind a paywall. If you’ve read the book, I’d love your feedback! Would just after Chapter 3.5 (AKA Trench Coat Tussle) and before Chapter 4 (AKA Critical Failure) be a good spot? Let me know in the comments where you think makes the most sense for a paywall break in the story! (Or hit REPLY to this email)