Hello all! I'm back to continue my adventure through the perils of moving.

The maintenance guy called us back while I was crying on the phone with my mom. He left a voicemail saying that they would "probably" be able to get out here in the morning, but to not use the water. At all. What??



But fine, we would lay too-small but clean sheets on the bed and get a good night's rest.

By now, the slight headache I had from overexerting myself all weekend had grown into a full-on migraine. I try not to take pain medicine if I don't have to, and although I knew this situation would certainly warrant a couple of ibuprofen, I knew my pain was simply from a desperate need to go to bed. So that was all I really wanted to do.

I had to be at work at 8am Monday, and that was just not going to happen at this point. I think I would have broken down into some form of hysterics had I gone in. So I called my manager, who didn't answer. Instead of leaving her a teary-sounding voicemail, I hung up and sent her a text to call me back when she could. A few minutes later, she called and I explained my situation, willing myself not to cry (again). She sounded little more than uninterested, but I think it may have been closer to her just not caring in the least bit (which, of course, just made me want to cry more). She only became concerned when I said "I don't think I'll be able to go in tomorrow." Her response was not that of understanding or compassion, but instead a cold, "Well, who is going to work?" I was speechless for a moment, taken aback by the contrast of lack of emotion toward anything that didn't have anything to do with her directly and the sudden emotion brought on by the idea of no one opening at work. I fumbled with an answer, finally telling her I would call my coworker to see if she would come in earlier than her originally scheduled 9am shift, and that I would let her know what the conclusion turned out to be.

My coworker, thankfully, was SO much more empathetic! I didn't even have to ask her to cover for me; by the time I got to the end of the story, she said, "Do you need me to open for you?" and I almost cried at her kindness. I felt so relieved.

Off to bed we went, and up early in the morning to get things moving. Fiance's sister offered use of her shower that morning, so we took our essentials to her place and got cleaned up. We ran a couple of errands, and fiance brought me back home to wait for the plumber to come while he went into work. I took a nap, and by the time I woke up at 12, no one had arrived. I called the management office to speak to the maintenance manager. I briefly explained the situation to the secretary who answered the phone, and she told me she would get the manager I had requested to speak to, but that she knew the plumber had my key since she had handed it to him that morning. That made me feel a bit better, and I sat patiently waiting until the manager picked up the phone. I nicely explained that I was wondering when I could expect his arrival, and she told me probably not until the next day. That was when I stopped being so nice. I told her that we could not wait that long, that their maintenance employee had told us not to use any water at all. She said, "For a clogged toilet?" sounding very confused.

It took everything in me to not yell, but I did get pretty panicked. I explained to her, "NO, it is NOT a clogged toilet! There is something wrong with the pipes draining the water from the entire house. There was water gushing out of the toilet!!" She told me, "Well, I can call him. I can't guarantee he'll be able to come out today, but I'll see what I can do." I hoped that this would be the end of it. Half an hour later, no one had shown up or called me, so I called the management office again. The secretary who answered this time went to ask the manager herself if she had gotten a hold of the plumber, and she returned with the response, "She did not get a hold of him, but he will call you when he's on his way." Basically, stop calling us. We don't care anymore.

When fiance came home that evening, we tested the upstairs water to see if it would make the downstairs toilet overflow. I mean, we had been using the water before when we were cleaning, so it couldn't have been too big a problem at this point. And it wasn't! The toilet did not overflow and we were able to shower again! Yipee!

The next day, while I was at work, fiance called me, telling me the plumbers had arrived at the house without a key. He had to leave work to go let them in. So who did the management office give the key out to then? They didn't know! Hm. How safe.

Fiance showed up to our place, and as he led the way to the front door, he saw that the plumber was carrying a simple plunger. "What's that for?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm here to plunge your toilet," he replied.

"Well, you're not going to get much done with that." And he proceeded to explain what had happened. Well, the management office had apparently called these plumbers to come unclog our toilet just to get us off their backs and stop calling them. I guess the maintenance manager just didn't believe us when we had tried to explain what was happening. So nice, right?

Fiance told me the snake they had to use to unclog the drain was so big it had to sit on the back of a truck! There was 60 feet worth of crud and dead rats clogging our drainage lines. They said the reason our house didn't reek was probably because when we had come in and started using the water, we drowned them and they hadn't started to smell yet. Y-U-C-K!!!!

**Keep that in mind, everyone, if you're ever moving into a place that has been sitting vacant with open pipe lines, make sure they have been checked!! The owner of this townhouse should have had an inspector come in before renting the place. This should not have happened!**

A little while later, fiance called me again. He had loaded the dishwasher (how sweet, I know!), but it wouldn't run. There was no power going to it. Great. Add it to the list!

We were both home that night, happily using our plumbing (except the dishwasher and washing machine), when we heard another weird watery noise coming from the powder room. Noooo! Well, it turned out that when we used the water at all, the drainage was suctioning the water out of the toilet, making bubbles. At least it wasn't coming up the other way any more!

It actually still makes that noise; the plumbers came out yesterday and said the line needs to be snaked (I guess that individual drain pipe), but they didn't have a big enough snake with them. The dishwasher repairman came, and said it needs some part ordered for it, so I will continue hand washing all of our dishes for another week. The garage door, though, that was fixed yesterday! He reinforced the broken part (although he said it will probably continue to crack), fixed the automatic opener, and got us a replacement remote! Yay!

Alas, our problems are still not quite over. The master bathroom fan hasn't worked since before we moved in, and neither has the paddle fan/light on the back patio. When the repairman came today, he called to tell me that the key the office gave him didn't work. Of course it didn't. Oh, and did I mention there is no remote for the remote-operated ceiling fan in the living room? So when we hit the switch, the fan turns onto the low setting and the light doesn't turn on at all. No remote exists for it, and to buy a replacement we would have to buy replacement internal components for the fan as well. Almost like buying an entirely new paddle fan. And one of the turning rods for the blinds was missing (I know, they're cheap, we already bought matching replacements!). And the sprayer for the kitchen sink leaks. There was also a leak under the sink, but our friend fixed that the Saturday of move-in weekend (thank goodness!!).

Sorry if this is getting to be overkill; I know none of these things are deal-breakers at all, but when they all pile up on each other and rear their ugly heads at the same time, they can be pretty darn overwhelming.

If anyone would like to share their moving horror stories, please feel free to leave a comment! Thanks for reading. The next post won't be so dreary, I promise!

-Christi Lee
xo