The beginning of my week..whew!

**jkelstaten** · 01-30-2007, 01:33 PM

Well, I haven't been on-line much this week because of what happened yesterday.

The sewer backed up into the drain in my bathroom floor!!! YUCK!!!

I went to plug in my hot water heater yesterday morning (we can only plug it in part-time) I walked into the bathroom to discover that water was coming out of the drain on the floor. Dh had taken a friend to the embassy here for a visa and was gone all morning. So I had two toddlers plus bailing out my bathroom all morning. I finally got ahold of another friend that was able to come and assess the situtation for me. He went to get their version of a "snake". By that time Dh got here with our other friend and a girl from the church that I had called to get some phone numbers. So me and the girl continued bailing out the bathroom which after they took the cover off the drain became nasty sewage junk (to put it nicely) They tried the snake and couldn't unclog it. Our neighbor who we share drainage pipes with was having the same problem. So we finally got ahold of a plumber, but he couldn't come until late in the afternoon. When he did come he had no clue what he was doing. He insisted that the pipes had to be dug up because they were too small for him to unplug and he would have to get to them another way. Dh told him not to dig (mind you we share a patio area with 3 other familes, only one of these families was having the same problem we were), but for some reason he did anyway. We had major communications problems because of the language barrier. Finally at 7pm last night he gave up and our landlord had finally come and she told him to go. Thankfully around 10pm last night the flood stopped, but the drains weren't draining.

SO, this morning they had another plumber come out and the first thing he says was "why did he dig up that pipe? It's the wrong one". Exactly what we had said. He quoted us a price and said he would fix the clog. He worked all day and finally discovered that the problem was in the neighbor's part of the pipes (they had been saying it was our fault). So, anyway it's finally fixed. But my house is a disaster. I bleached the floors twice tonight already, but the in addition to the sewage problem, the electricity and water in our neighborhood was shut off all day (no idea why, but it's a common occurance here). The electricity is back on, but no water yet. So I won't be able to finish cleaning until tomorrow. We still can't use the toilet because he fixed another problem with it and put caulk on it that needs to dry. So we get to use a bucket until tomorrow afternoon.

Plus, for whatever reason the reference we provided for our friend to get his visitor's visa to the U.S. (for a couple weeks of training through our church) was apparently not good enough so now we have to figure out what the embassy is asking for so that we can get the visa in enough time to still get a decent price on airline tickets.

So, it's been a crazy week already, but I'm not really stressed about it. I don't stress about things I can't change. God helped us through it. I just hope the rest of the week is easier.....lol

**REJB** · 01-30-2007, 01:43 PM

I hope the rest of your week turns out better!

**LastDragonfly** · 01-30-2007, 01:46 PM

Bless your heart! Sometimes disasters seem to snowball. I wonder why we don't think of blessings snowballing? I'm sending you some hugs! It will be interesting to see how your acusatory neighbor now responds.

Good luck !

**jkelstaten** · 01-30-2007, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by Penascodragonfly

It will be interesting to see how your acusatory neighbor now responds.

Good luck !

We didn't tell him. And it wasn't the neighbor really acusing us, it was our landlord (she told our friend's that were translating for us that she thought we tried to flush a diaper...duh!) But anyway, it didn't cost a lot ($47) to have it fixed and we paid for it because we know he doesn't have the money for it. And he gave us the key for his room (one-room apartment) so that the plumber could work in there while he was at work. The plumber was gone by the time he got home, but he did have to remove some paneling to fix the whole problem. (He didn't put it back on, which is normal for workers here....) We also have the same landlord and we have enough problems with her that I don't want to throw gas on the fire. We only have 3 months left and everything will work out. I'm just glad we don't have the "fountain of yuck" in my bathroom anymore!