Toilet travails

It's been a while since I posted and quite frankly, it's because I've been in a sour mood. Why, you wonder? Well, dear readers, allow me to oblige you....

Toilet troubles.

That's why.

Nothing will make me want to leave, quit, fight, burn the house down more than a consistent, unresolved, non-functioning sewer system.

It started back in January shortly after the New Year. January 6th to be precise. I knew something was odd before then because the toilet wasn't flushing normally. Then, no flush. Frozen. I left the 9th with a toilet that still wasn't functioning.

I returned on the 21st to a semi-functioning toilet. One that would burble, gurgle, and erupt like a geyser upon flushing. Yep, that's neat. But don't worry, I was told this was normal because they removed a vent pipe. Again, that's neat.

Typically, the pipes here have a heat trace line that runs alongside them then a thick layer of insulation around them both. Finally, the pipes and insulation are boxed in by plywood. Well, when they "fixed" my pipes, they didn't bother to reinsulate or box the pipes back in. I bet you can guess what happened next!

Pipes stopped working at all a few days after I returned on the 21st. I did not have functioning toilet until January 31st. It was a damn damn good thing they started working that day because at 5am in the morning, I awoke with a fierce stomach virus. It was brutal. My body expelled all its stomach and intestinal contents violently until there was nothing but bare bags and tubes of organs inside. I have never been so grateful for a functioning toilet as then and I was so scared every time I'd hurl from one end or the other that that flush would be the toilet's last.

The toilet worked for Feb 1 and 2. I left the morning of the 3rd, still nursing a wounded digestive system (for supreme fun--have a stomach virus and take 4 flights back to back to back to back from Igloolik to Edmonton for 12 hours with no time to stop at an airport bathroom).

I have just returned from Edmonton last night. I got two flushes in. The third failed. I have no working toilet again. Despite a call to the emergency line, no one came today from the Housing Corp, whose responsibility it is to keep these units working. They didn't call, they didn't leave a note, nothing. Nothing.

I may burn the whole place down.Read more