insomnia haiku

Plumb annoyed at this leak thing (or, water on the brain)

Update on the update (sorry, I realize this is interesting to no one, least of all me):

The super called at 9 this morning, explaining with glee that they found the source of the leak upstairs. Yay! I went through my normal routine of lounging in bed for a while, checking my email, turning on my TV and and starting on a 10-minute Pilates video (segment: "Waist Slimmer"), because the bathing suit I ordered from J. Crew arrived the other day, and let's just say I need to be doing a lot of sit-ups.

Knock on my door. I am still in my pajamas. It's a hardly revealing tank top and cute little PJ shorts from the Gap, but still. I throw on a bathrobe, open the door, and it's the plumber (and his assistant), indicating with short phrases and gestures that first, they need to get into my bathroom; then, they need to break into my kitchen wall. "Right now?" I say. "Yes," they say. "Right now."

I'm usually a polite person, but I'm having a hard time hiding my annoyance. "I wish I knew you were coming. I wasn't planning on being home today," I say. Blank stare. (Granted, I was still planning to eat breakfast, take a shower, do some work from home, eat lunch -- not to mention finish the workout video -- and then head into the office, since I'm technically a freelancer and they don't really care if or when I get in; but it's the principle of the thing.)

They are still here. A third dude showed up. I think he might be their boss. He's dressed a little nicer, anyway (i.e., his shirt doesn't have a hole in it). They're nattering on in Russian so I have no idea what's going on. Now my kitchen looks like this:

I haven't had anything to drink this morning, I can't get to the refrigerator to pour myself a glass of water, and I can't go downstairs and get an iced coffee because I can't leave the plumbers alone with access to my apartment.

Help! Oh, and they haven't found a leak yet, either.

Please send water.

Update: Oh, wait! I hear the sound of dripping water. That's... good?

Further update: I am definitely seeing water dripping down along the pipe in that bottom hole (maybe if I stick my mouth under the drip, it will quench my thirst?). The plumber came back, and I was able to extract from him -- he really doesn't speak much English -- that it's coming from the apartment upstairs from me. I can hear them breaking into that wall right now.

Problem is, they were never able to reach the guy who lives in that apartment. (Don't ask me why no one, not the landlord nor the super, seems to have his current phone number or email address.) So the super climbed up the fire escape, entered his apartment through the window, and let the plumbers in that way. Legal or not legal? I have no idea.

I would say that it's this guy's fault for not supplying anyone with his updated contact info; but on the other hand, when he gets home, he's in for a rude shock once he takes a look at the gaping hole in his wall. So it's a wash. Get it? Wash? Sorry. I've got water on the brain. I'm so thirsty. New lesson: Always go pour yourself a glass of water immediately upon getting up -- before the plumbers come in and destroy your kitchen.

Remind me to tell you about the time in my old apartment when the plumbers broke into my wall and found... a secret toilet.

11:54 a.m. OK, apparently I'm live-blogging this shit now.

Fun times:

And get this: In that upper part of the wall, they discovered a garbage bag. Yes, there was a garbage bag in my wall. Apparently, once upon a time, someone did some renovations and left a garbage bag in there. Why? Does this have anything to do with the leak? I do not know.

All right, I've now talked to the super, who explained: That garbage bag is there because once upon a time, there was probably a leak, and a contractor fixed it by taping it and wrapping a garbage bag around it. Because "contractors are shady," the super says. (Amen.) And it's been like that, unnoticed, for at least a decade.

The plumbers are going to fix the leak now, and they cleaned up the dropcloths and plaster and I finally have access to my refrigerator so that I can get some water, and the super said that if I wanted to go to the store, he'll be around to keep an eye on things. And so, I'm signing off from Leak and Garbage Bag Central (for now). Stay dry, everyone. And hydrated.

Last pictures:

Look! I can see my downstairs neighbor's apartment from here. Hellooooo!

The Mystery of the Insidious Leak

Update: The drama of the insidious leak downstairs continues. Even though my super tightened some screws underneath my sink, that didn't solve the problem completely, and my downstairs neighbor finally made good on his threat to ask the landlord to call a plumber. Then he knocked on my door yesterday at 8 a.m. (fortunately I was already awake, albeit pajama-clad) to tell me that I had to call the landlord and confirm that they needed to send a plumber. I wasn't sure why. My brain doesn't work properly before noon.

The plumber came over yesterday -- a Russian guy* and his partner -- to knock a big hole in my bathroom wall. He couldn't find any leak, either. I think my downstairs neighbor thought that plumbers had magical superhero leak-finding powers, but 'tis not the case. The plumber and the super began to wonder if the source was in the apartment above mine; the super asked me if I had that guy's phone number, and when I said, "No, I don't even know who lives there," he found this amusing. Again, I don't know why. This is New York! Don't we take some minor amount of pride in not knowing who our neighbors are? (I don't really mean that. I admit to being a little miffed that even after I'd just moved in, people would pass me on the stairs and not introduce themselves. I didn't expect the Welcome Wagon, but still -- civility to the new kid, people.)

*Am I positive he was Russian? Admittedly, no. But consider these clues: His name was Yuri, he had an Eastern European accent, and with his partner he was speaking what sounded to my untrained ear like Russian, so... I'm taking a stab at it.

The super, because he'd forgotten his glasses, asked me to write a note for him telling the guy upstairs that "we" needed his keys. The plumber promised to be back at 8 a.m. the next day (today). This morning, I got up at 7:45 a.m. and threw some clothes on, and the plumber buzzed downstairs and then knocked on my door, but the guy or people upstairs had never come home and seen the note on his door, and no one had their current number, so the plumber left.

Later the super came by and we futilely discussed how no one had the phone number of the guy upstairs. I half- but not really jokingly said to my super (for the tenth time) that maybe someday we could talk about him caulking the tiles in my severely mildewed tub, which he's been promising to do since October. He sort of laughed. I sort of didn't. (Really, he is a nice guy. Just... busy.)

I don't know if this is a New York story or a rental story or an "oy, what're ya gonna do" story, but The Mystery of the Teeny Tiny Leak in My Downstairs Neighbor's Apartment remains unsolved. And now my bathroom looks like this:

Speaking of mysteries, Donald Sobol, the author of the Encyclopedia Brown books, died last week. Any death is sad, but I did feel a little pang over this one -- partly, I think, because when I was a kid, Encylopedia Brown was kind of my role model. Is that strange to say?

Please send water

On Thursday, my downstairs neighbor (whom I'd never met before) knocked on my door. There was a leak in his kitchen ceiling, he told me. His arms were crossed, his face accusing, as though I'd left the faucet running and flooded my own floor just to mess with him. I took him into my kitchen, looked around. No water. No leak anywhere. I sent him on his way.

Half an hour later, he returned with the super. His arms were still crossed. His face was still accusing. They came in, and the super and I searched meticulously. I tried to make small talk with my neighbor. "So is the leak big?" I asked. "It's like the ceiling's going to come down on my head!" he said. The man was not in the mood for small talk. I was starting to feel like the sober driver who's pulled over at a DUI checkpoint. I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt guilty regardless.

The super and I found nothing. "I'll be around if you need anything else," I said to their retreating backs. "Good luck!" 

Saturday. The super was back. My downstairs neighbor's leak had started its mischief again. The super and I searched my apartment for over an hour, finding nothing. We flushed the toilet 15 times in a row just to see if it would impact my neighbor's mysterious leak, but it didn't. After my super left, I tried to take a shower, but -- irony of ironies -- on the hottest day of the year, there was no hot water. I let the tap run forever hoping the water would warm, and after I'd given up, I found a small trickle of water coming from a knob underneath the sink. Eureka! I called my super, who, on his way back to the building already to fix the boiler, came over again. We thought this might be the cause of my neighbor's leak. We looked at each other smugly, conspirators who'd solved a crime.

A couple hours later, when I was out to dinner, my new best friend the super called me. The guy in the first-floor apartment now had a leak in his ceiling.

I returned home last night to find a note that the water in the building had been turned off, as there was a water pipe with a leak. Oh boy. I still had some drinking water in a glass, so I used that to rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth. I "washed" my hands with hand sanitizer. This morning, I used all my remaining drinking water in an attempt to flush the toilet. When I went downstairs, the door to the apartment on the first floor was open, and I could see large chunks of the ceiling scattered all over the table and floor.

A plumber has come over to inspect whether or not he's going to have to take my floor apart. (He was accompanied by my super and downstairs neighbor who, now that action is being taken, was much chattier.) We still have no water. It's hitting 90 degrees today, which is better than yesterday, but still. I am telling you all this in case my entire building ends up dead of heat stroke/dehydration and on the news. Listen up, kids: Always refill your Brita pitcher. Or, hoard bottled water like a crazy person fearing the apocalypse. That'll work, too.

Update: Turns out there are two leaks in the building. There's a broken water pipe on the second floor, which caused the first-floor apartment's roof to collapse. The trickle of water from the knob underneath my sink was causing the (miniscule) leak in my downstairs neighbor's ceiling. The two leaks are entirely unrelated.

After my super finishes supervising the plumbers fixing the broken water pipe, he has to come to my apartment and fix the knob under my sink. (He kindly pointed out to me that I had no way of knowing anything was wrong, as the previous tenants -- freaking out from seeing a few water bugs -- had sprayed foam sealant around the knob, a definite no-no that prevented us from seeing any kind of leak until he knocked some of the sealant off.) Forgive me, but this weekend, we had the perfect storm of water leaks in my building.

Typo Ninja: Hottest Day of the Yeat

From NY1's weather report:

According to Webster's, there is no such word as "yeat."

Urban Dictionary, however, yields a different story. "Yeat" is defined first as a word that residents of Newburyport, Massachusetts, used to shout from one ship to another to identify themselves. It can be used to mean "yes" or even "no"; it is also supposed to be the first word of the slang phrase "yeat the bun," which is not defined, so I have zero idea what it means. (My tentative stab at it: "Boy, he really yeat the bun on that one.")

Then there is this sample conversation 

John: Yeat! 
Mark: Yes, yeat indeed. And how are you doing this fine day? 
John: Yeat. 
Mark: Ah, not too well. Do you want to go help me do chores? 
John: Yeat to that! 
Mark: Ah, so you'd rather not. How about the movies. 
John: YEAT! 
Mark: Great, let's go. 

Oh, now you're just talking nonsense. It sounds like John is either touched in the head (see: Hodor in Game of Thrones: "Hodor!") or else bound and gagged, only able to make the sound "yeat!" in desperate response, meaning, "Help! I'm bound and gagged -- set me free, you idiot!"

In any yeat, this hottest day of the yeat has me scared to go outyeat, so I am staying inside to yeat my yeat even though I have no yeat in the yeat.