One way or another
"It smells like poop in here," I messaged E. "Is it because they're working on the pipes?"
"Might be," he responded. "Shaking loose the poop dust dried from the dripping."
I typed back, "Kill me."
And this is the situation I so desperately wished to escape from, what I didn't want to memorialize with words, why I made the very-emotional-and-not-financially-sound decision to empty all our savings accounts, including our emergency fund, to buy an apartment, so we could get out of here fast, but we haven't been able to leave fast enough.
At first we thought it was the coffee maker spurting coffee onto the wall. When we moved it and still saw brown splashes, we thought there was a leak in the roof. We reported the issue with this cute message:
Water still comes out of the air vent when it rains. We hope you can check it so there is no water damage to the building.
No response from the landlord for weeks.
We moved our pantry cabinet. We continued to clean the living room wall and floor. We taped paper towels to the air vent and changed them out when they soaked through.
Then a repair guy came to assess the situation and reported that it wasn't an external leak. He said it was coming from our neighbor's avlopp,1 that he wasn't the right guy for the job. So a plumber came next and confirmed, yes, indeed, it was as the first guy suspected. Then an insurance guy came over, citing significant water damage. We understood the ceiling needed to be ripped out and replaced. Our neighbor was told to not use his bathroom. We didn't want to be here for this. That was 10 weeks ago.
Today the repair work started.
Yesterday I packed my things back into the suitcases I brought them in.
One way or another, I am getting out of this apartment this week.
🤢🤢🤢
—
Blaugust 10/31
Drain for sewage / wastewater↩