This Can't Be Happening 2

32 hours.

That's how long it took to resolve the toilet situation. The timeline for this little adventure looked like this:

February 6, 03.30: I retired for the night. All was well.

February 6, 08.30: Mabel woke me up. The toilet was backed up again. I was aghast and enraged. We contacted the landlord, who at that moment was returning to Hong Kong from mainland China.

February 6, 10.00: The landlord came to our flat to see what we were dealing with. He told me the extent of the problem and said calls had been made to get it cleared.

February 6, 16.30: After eight hours of monitoring and bailing the toilet, my mother-in-law took over. Dog tired, I fell into bed.

February 6, 19.30: I awoke to learn that nothing had been done. I knew I'd have to stay up all night; I had no choice.

February 7, 08.30: I'd ingested huge amounts of caffeine to stay awake. I spent 13 hours alternating between the bathroom and the computer. I was exhausted and collapsed in bed.

February 7, 11.30: I awoke to discover an even bigger mess. While I slept, my wife had been told that the system had been cleared. When she removed the towel from the toilet, it overflowed. She called the landlord to explain the system wasn't cleared and called work to take the day off. She then set about cleaning up the mess.

I told her she should have woken me to let me deal with it, but she wouldn't hear of it. She told me someone had been called to look at the system.

February 7, 16.30: Workers cleared the outer pipes. We learned they hadn't fixed our pipes because they were repairing pipes of other flats first. I spent two hours scouring the bathroom with disinfectant.

I'm ready to clean myself up; I want to wash away this nightmare with a good hot shower.

I don't know how easy it will be. That this has happened twice within the past two weeks has me paranoid that it will happen again. I don't trust the building management anymore. I dread I'll go to bed and awake to find another cesspool in our bathroom.

Enough is enough.

Tomorrow we begin scoping new flats.

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