More adventures in plumbing… wheeeee…

All of the heavy rain we have experienced in the Greater Boston area recently seems to have reproduced the problem that Kelly and I had last October.

Yeah, that problem.

We love living in an old building, at least most of the time.  But there are times when it certainly presents a lot of problems.  The torrential rains that started with the passing of the remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea finally made our antiquated sewage lines give up the ghost yet again. After a short period of slow draining in the tub, someone flipped the “reverse” switch and water started coming into the tub instead of going out.  So all of a sudden the tub began to look like the inside of a Portajon, in all its hopelessly unsanitary horror – just not blue.  Much pain and suffering was inflicted on noses and eyeballs.  And showering was reduced to a kinda-sorta shower done while straddling the tub in some sort of bizarre acrobatic water dance with the portable shower head.  Thank God we at least have that.

So after attempting to fix the problem myself (again), I realized that this was a problem beyond my skillset (not to mention patience).  The sewer lines were the problem, probably somewhere between the house and the street.   So I called my super, and the landlord, and eventually a plumber, once I knew the name of the one they usually use.  I set up an appointment, and then they came over today to fix everything while I was at work.  Fortunately Kelly had the day off (for once) and so she was able to take care of everything once they got here, an hour or so after I left for work.  Maybe she can tell you all about it, and about their four-legged helper they brought along.

-Geoff