for the record, i'm quite aware that you readers are just about as sick of reading about my apartment leakage problems as i am writting about them

There are three Slovakian men standing in my 3 feet by 5 feet kitchen as I write…TO FIX MY KITCHEN LEAK. I’ve called my landlord 3 times this week, and again, I had water in the corner every evening. I called again yesterday, asked for their fax number and told him every detail again…as he likes to rush me off the phone before I can explain how I’m not really lying about all of this. The landlord, we’ll call him “Ben,” gets on his walkie-talkie with the company they pay to fix leaks and explains, almost word for word what I told him…I almost fainted in shock. Though he did add a little snobbish remark at the end about getting this done already so that we can all just move on…why do I think he said that to spite me because he knew I could hear him? Well, I’ll take it that he’s finally getting as annoyed with this leak as I am and is finally gonna do his job and make sure that it gets done.

Anyways, Landlord “Ben” gets back on the phone and tells me that the ‘fixers’ will call me later that night to schedule a time for them to come over. I said…fine. (in the back of my mind, i’m 30 seconds from faxing them a written statement that if they don’t have this fixed in 14 days (which really would add up 2 months and 14 days since this has been a problem since I moved in) I’m getting it fixed myself and taking the amount it costs out of my rent. I Do know a little about my tenant rights. So, I waited, NOT holding my breath, for the call later that afternoon.

9pm, I get the call…”will you be there at 9am tomorrow?” I say, yes…and they say they’ll be here.

9:35am this morning, they show up and (thank God) there was a small puddle in the corner of the kitchen. The thing is, it drains, and often in later morning/early afternoon, and so when they’ve been by before, it has ‘dried’ up. I use “ ” because it’s still damp, but there’s not a visible puddle, so they think I’m smoking crack cause there’s no puddle and leave. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no leak. HOWEVER, THIS MORNING. there was still a definite VISIBLE puddle and they were all like “oh my god”.

It’s now 10:30 am and they’re still working on it. Two of the men have now gone upstairs, I guess to check the other apartment for leaks. And the guy who’s in my kitchen is chatting with him in is native language hopefully discussing the next steps to take.

The only problem is that I’m STARVING and have zero food in the house…but I don’t want to leave while they’re here, so that I’m a)here if they have any questions, and b) so that I know exactly what time they leave and they can tell me when they’re coming back or any other important information so that they can’t use anything against me later on.
(though I guess it could be argued the fact that they’re speaking in a language that sounds like gibberish to me, I guess I don’t really know all that’s going on anyways.)

(Oh, and I have to use the crapper like there’s no tomorrow, but there’s NO way I’m going while they’re here…)


Does this look fixed to you?