Passing Water
Boy, what a fun past couple of days I’ve had. First the toilet in the master bathroom started leaking water around the base. I called the management office and they sent up a couple of plumbers. I stood there and watched them scrape away the caulk from the edge of toilet, and realized that there was no wax seal on the inside. It was just the porcelain sitting on the floor with caulk sealing it. They tinkered with it for a little while, then told me they’d come back the next day (today) and re-seal it with caulk. Then, later that day, the washer/dryer unit in my kitchen leaked water all over the floor. The fitting where the hose connects to the water line was leaking like a bastard.
This morning they showed up to complete the job. I told them about the washer issue, and they determined they needed to replace the fitting. When they went in the bathroom to caulk the toilet they flushed it as a test and it began to leak again. (Duh! You didn’t put the seal in, you dumb fucks.) As they were testing the toilet it ceased filling back up. We checked the other toilet and it also wasn’t refilling. The management guy, who was doing the translating between the plumbers and me, said I had probably not paid my toilet water bill. (Remember, you pay different rates for hot water, cold water, and toilet water.) He took my toilet water credit card and stuck it into the water meter, and was surprised to find I had 30 RMB credit, which is a ton of money for toilet water. So it was another plumbing issue.
I got home tonight and all the work appears to have been fixed. But, this is China, doing things half-assed is the national pastime. God only knows what’s going to go wrong next.
Perhaps living on the 25th floor wasn’t such a hot idea.
