I spent most of yesterday morning cleaning house like I typically do on mornings when I need to focus the energy from my daily coffee binge. Sweeping, vacuuming, taking out the trash, and all the other usual chores were attended to until I reached the most arduous chore of all; cleaning the bathroom. I'm not much of a fan of it since it's a cold, tiny tile room that never seems to stay clean for long, and being in that poorly ventilated cubbyhole with cleaning chemical fumes makes it a drag. Nevertheless, armed with a spray bottle of lemon scented cleaner and a rag, I started to clean.
After scrubbing the toilet and taking out the bathroom trash, I began to wipe down the sink and noticed a drip... drip... drip coming from underneath. Puzzled, since the sink had been mostly clogged for awhile at that point, I looked underneath and saw droplets of water from the trap pipe hitting my scale. I felt underneath to see where the leak was coming from, but as I brushed my fingers over the base of the pipe, they caught something and gross drain water began to spew out. After cursing a lot about the added mess, I sopped up the water and thought about how to fix the issue. I could call a plumber, but that requires more money for a relatively simple fix. I could call the landlord, but that seems like a lot more hassle for a relatively simple fix. I opted for the best solution (in my mind) and decided to fix the bastard myself. It's just one busted drain pipe, after all.
How hard of a fix could that be?
I went to the hardware store, picked up a new pipe, went home, went back to the hardware store to get a new pipe that wasn't too big, went home, and went to swapping the pipes out. After struggling to get the old trap pipe off it finally budged. "Oh," I mumbled to myself before shouting, "OHHH gross... UGH! Agh!" as years of gunk and grossness spilled onto the floor and myself. If the ghost from The Grudge was real and doll-sized it would probably have looked like the mess that splashed on me and hung in the pipes. I'd go into detail, but... you don't want details. I took a much deserved break from the biohazardous nightmare fuel, and proceeded to work.
After some time everything seemed to be connected. The floor and sink basin were a muddy mess, sure, but the pipes were all there, the connections were nice and tight, and everything was going to work out wonderfully. Except, y'know, once I got the water running and water leaked from every conceivable nook and cranny. I was a bit miffed at the situation, especially after spending so much time on a simple fix that wasn't even fixed, but I was also running late for work, so I put the project on hold, brushed my teeth while I took a shower, and went on with my day.
Today I enlisted my dad, either for his wisdom and experience in being so handy with home improvements or for confirmation that I wasn't as stupid as I thought and that the drain issue was a mystery. We got more pipes, gaskets, cuts and scrapes, only to find that the pipes weren't so much the issue as was the sink itself; being from the 1930s or 1940s, some structural things with it don't match up with the more standardized hardware of today. That might explain why nobody's probably messed with the plumbing for so many years, but hard water and countless tenants is bound to rust out a cheap metal pipe after a couple decades, so it was inevitable. Either way, the gaskets wouldn't seal off the hole in the sink enough because it was wider and wonkier than they could handle. The whole project, as my father repeated a number of times throughout the day, was "caddywampus". I settled with calling it "fucked" but he was right too.
I'll call the property manager tomorrow. I mean, I already have most of the needed parts, but I think it'd be more productive to get professionals in to look at it and say, "What the fuck?" instead of doing the same thing myself. I don't care to work in the bathroom more than I have to, and go figure it's been two days of dismantling it and putting it back together. I'm cool with letting someone else do it.
The moral of the story is this; don't bother cleaning the bathroom because something might break and ruin your Tuesday.
Or, maybe, sometimes you might need to break down and ask for actual help. I don't know.
That sink pisses me off so much.
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