Monday, January 02, 2006

Would you throw this away?


I decided to share this little anecdotal story about our tenants on the blog after telling my Dad the story last night. When Steve relayed it to me, I just laughed at the absurdity.

As you know we had a toilet overflow upstairs and pour water down into our unit. Steve was pretty mad because he feels that for a toilet to overflow like that, it had to be acting up for a while and they didn't say anything. Plus, he blames the fact that they treat this place like a flophouse and always have friends coming and going, which is true. So far, we see no apparent damage to our ceiling or walls, but time will tell.

Since then, we've had a plumber out twice to snake out their toilet ($50 a pop)and then Saturday it was acting up again and Thadeus came down to let us know. We had bought them a plunger right after the first incident because the one they had was totally useless. Steve also showed them how to shut the water off on the toilet in case it ever happened again.

Well, Saturday when Steve went upstairs to plunge the toilet, the following conversation ensued:
Steve: Where is the plunger?
Thadeus: We threw it away.
Steve: Why would you throw it away?
Thadeus: It had feces on it.
Steve: I can't believe you threw that away. We bought that for you. You could have taken it in the basement and rinsed it off. I can't believe you threw that away.
Thadeus: Oh, we will buy another one.

Honestly, I don't think they have the stomach or wherewithal to really plunge a toilet. What's so funny to me is that they have no problem leaving food around, attracting rodents and leaving milk to sour and stink up the back porch, etc...but they can't plunge a toilet and problem solve enough to think how to clean off a plunger. Maybe rinse it in the toilet after you've plunged it?

No, to them a plunger is like toilet paper (which also touches the dreaded feces) and must be thrown away.

7 comments:

Greg said...

That is pretty ridiculous. As nasty as they can get, I can’t ever recall anyone treating a plunger as a disposable, one-use item.

Anonymous said...

Wow. That's crazy. Your tenants sound like the kind of people who should never own a home. Or a condo. Or a pet. Or God forbid that they actually reproduce. Yeesh.

WCTs said...

Keep the plunger....can be very handy!

Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Where did these people come from? Are they really that sheltered?
I have never heard of anything like that....but maybe I'm the sheltered one ;)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... I think they'd do better if they had an outhouse to use. They wouldn't need to use a plunger, it wouldn't back up and it shouldn't overflow. You could come up with a nice design to fit in with your garden and if you're feeling really nice you could include a heater for the cold Chicago winters!

Unknown said...

hi, long time lurker. just had to extend my sympathies over the plunger situation. hope you find better tenants in the new year.

Emerld said...

Good one! How's this? We had tenants who's under the sink pipe leaked for god knows how long and it ate through the wood and the whole sink practically collapsed into the ceiling of the apartment below it! Yikes!

We've had 2 furnaces go out this year and pipe problems. What's next?