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Prepare to Look Away, It's Not Pretty

I arrived home yesterday evening, looking forward to a relaxing night after a dull dull MLK day at work. It's the usual - I pull myself through the door, block the cats who are meowing and flopping right in my way, put my junk on the coat rack, and head for a hot hot shower.

But the minute I turn on the bathroom light - AHHHHHHHHHH.

No, it's not some knife wielding maniac or overwhelming mildew. It's that stupid green toilet again. And it's leaking all over the freakin place. Again. It's so disgusting, I'm ashamed to show you this picture:


No that's not poo water - it's just clean water mixed with a whole lotta dirt. It's pretty much impossible to clean back there. And yes, that floor is actually rippled from all the water damage. In fact, I just know the day will come when I'll sit down on the toilet and fall right through to the basement.

Those who know this blog know that I have written about my hatred of this bathroom and particularly of this toilet time and time again. And believe me, I'm as sick of writing about it as you are of reading about it.

And if I'm sick of writing about it, you know I'm sick of dealing with it. So I just stuck a bowl under the leak and tried to ignore it. Kamikaze the cat, however, was highly intrigued.


Mike eventually got home and fixed it - again. The basic problem is that this toilet is old... duh, right? Well, the tank is actually waaay smaller than a new toilet tank. So the replacement parts we got for it at one point do not actually fit correctly. The drain, especially. So when the water level gets too high, it doesn't drain out, it leaks out the handle. Our solution for now was to take tin snips and cut the drain pipe thingy so water at a lower level can drain out correctly.

Why not get a new toilet? As I have explained before - this whole bathroom will eventually be demolished and two new ones (stacked on top of one another) will be built in its place. Why buy and install a new toilet just to have to take it out again? But the whole thing is an expensive proposition and I'm not ready to take the plunge. (hee hee, bathroom humor.)

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

What a pain!

You could get a cheap used toilet to stick in it's place for a while... it would be worth $25 or $50 to ME to not deal with it! If you have a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, check there! Check craigslist, too, of course.

I finally broke down and did some "temporary" fixes like that... it was taking forever for certain projects to be done, and I just couldn't live like that anymore!

kitrainia said...

Not a bad idea. I never thought of craigslist.... I'm going to take a look right now.

Fred said...

I've "reseated" two toilets in the last 2 weeks. The first was because one of my sons thought it would be a good idea to put a whole case of dental floss down one. It got stuck in the toilet, which I guess is fortunate because otherwise it could have clogged the lines. I will not tell you what backed up behind that dental floss though!

The second toilet pull was even worse. Two of my toilets on the second floor flow to the same drain pipe. I realized late Saturday night that they were both backing up... which means the problem wasn't in the toilet but was further down the line (and wax rings are exactly known for holding pressure-tight). In any event, I ended up renting a snake from Home Depot (one of the dirtiest devices known to man) to clean the pipe out.

It worked, but the drama wasn't over. Today my wife tells me that there's a leak coming through our kitchen. Turns out that I failed to re-tighten the in-water line on the toilet. So now a small section of drywall is ruined. Looks like next weekend's project is starting to shape up.

OK, well, that was long winded, but I'm glad I got it off my chest.

Fred
Come join us at One Project Closer

kitrainia said...

Oh my god Fred - I'm surprised you're still standing. What an ordeal!

And here I am wishing for a second bathroom.... Well, no kids yet, so I suppose I'm safe for now.

Thanks for the link - it's good to find someone else posting nearly every day. I was starting to think I was nuts, so I cut back on my posts when I felt I didn't have anything to talk about... Although I think you have a lot more useful info then my psychotic house ramblings. =)

But you're right about one thing - it's good to get it alll out on paper... er, internet. Very cleansing.