water, water everywhere

I've lived in my apartment for too many years.

I moved here when I was pregnant with Alexander, thinking it would be temporary. Yet here I am, 24 years later.

Throughout my tenancy, I have had a few complaints of the same issue.

Like the sidewalk shed that stayed up for 15 months, despite less than a year of actual work. Fortunately that problem is now gone.

But not gone is the horrid tenant who lives above me and has few rugs. I hear her regularly clomping around her apartment. This woman is small. Yet it sounds like a herd of elephants has invaded her apartment as she walks, heavy-footed, from room to room late at night. 

Or the night doorman who pulls up a chair when he's on duty, locks the front door, and then goes to sleep. Every. Single. Night.

And then there's my toilet. It regularly keeps running.

Mike, the handyman (who can fix just about anything), and Roberto, the super, have inspected my toilet many times. They have used some large coil thing called a snake to fix it. But it's never a permanent fix. And  they always conclude  the same thing. "You're lucky to have the older model toilet. The newer ones aren't as good." 

This morning, I get up around 6:30 to use the bathroom, planning to go right back to sleep. And that's what I would have done had it not been for the inch of water all over my bathroom floor.

I knew this would happen one day and now it has. Although this isn't my first thought.

My first thought is more like, "F@*K, I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS NOW!" And of course there is no super and no handyman in my building any time on Sunday.

I have to beg the doorman to leave his post and come up. He sees the flooded bathroom and asks if I have any paper towels. Really? Paper towels? I'd need a case of paper towels to clean up the mess. Not to mention all those poor trees.

So the doorman goes down to the basement and returns with a mop and a bucket. He does a quick sweep, leaving lots of water behind.

I get home from work around 9, and no one one has been contacted all day. The building's response: "It's noted in the book. Someone will be in tomorrow."

And so today is tomorrow. I tell the super who has just returned from vacation. His response. "I don't know nothing." 

"Well, there's not much to know," I say.  "My toilet kept running all night, as I've been complaining about for years. And this time it overflowed and left an inch of water on my bathroom floor."

The handyman Mike comes up. Apparently some tube in the tank was too short and had become disconnected from the place it should have been.

Problem solved (I really really hope).