Dave's Mess > Blog

They took my shower !

A few days ago, the people downstairs knocked on my door and asked if we could do something about the water leaking through their ceiling which was making it sag quite alarmingly.

Naturally, I agreed to call my landlord and ask her to do something about it, which I did the very next day. In contrast to what I expected, the landlord managed to have a guy around that very evening to assess the problem and see what he could do to fix it. He assumed that the problem was being caused by the shower and asked us not to use it the following morning. During the day, while I was at work, he came around and used a silicon sealant to go over the grouting underneath the showerhead. A poor job but one that would seem to suffice, particularly as we were planning on moving out of the house ten days after that anyway.

The problem persisted and the handyman came back and wanted to have another look at it. Unfortunately, he neglected to warn us of his visit and turned up at a time when Jane was actually in the bath. I declined his request to inspect the bath until such time as Jane was finished with it. He asked us not to use it again the following morning and said that he would have a professional in to look at it the next day. We rested easy, knowing that with our bathroom in good hands we could look forward to a long, hot shower every morning and no angry neighbours banging on the door, demanding that we stop showering.

The following afternoon, we arrived home to find a note duct-taped to the bath saying that we could not use the bath any time in the next 24 hours and that we could not use the shower again at all. We also noticed that the showerhead was missing. They had taken the showerhead with them to enforce our continued lack of cleanliness!

I suspect that this has solved the problem downstairs but the solution is totally unsatisfactory for us. If the shower is leaking, the correct solution is to plug the leak, not to remove the shower. A bath is a wonderful way to relax but not all that practical when trying to simply clean yourself before getting dressed and going to work. By the time the bath is run, I could have finished my shower and be on my way. We have no word yet on when they plan to restore the showerhead to it's rightful place but I suspect that their plan is not to even look at it until we have moved out. Moving out may come a litte sooner than we had originally planned. The new place has a much better shower and we are on the ground floor so there will be no neighbours to worry about.

Enough of my woes! I think it's time for a bath.