Water woes

Hello, all,

What is it with the French and water?? Our water woes were recently multiplied:

You may have read before about the water damage that occurred to our apartment. Now while the leak has been repaired since February, the fighting over who fixes the damage done to the ceiling and walls is still not over. Meanwhile, the wall paint is now peeling off, just like the pictures we posted earlier about the ceiling.

We had lined up friends of ours from church to submit an estimate to do the repairs. Our insurance company rejected it as too expensive. So they sent their own expert to do an estimate. Once he found out though that the damage started before we moved in, he decided that neither we nor our insurance were responsible for the damage - something I've been trying to get recognized by the parties involved for a while now!

Meanwhile, we had some unexpected trouble with our washer - but K is the better person to tell that story:

K: It started like any other laundry-washing episode. Laundry in, detergent in, water on. And on...and on...and on. That was my first clue: the water simply didn't stop running after the usual allotted time. I emailed the landlord, but just as I hit the "send" key, a new sound greeted my ears: a delicate fountain noise coming from the washer. The tub had filled up and now water was running out the top! I grabbed Ben and ran downstairs to the concierge's apartment below ours.

Fortunately, this happened on the one day his wife (who speaks some English) was home and fortunately, she called her husband on his cell phone to hurry over. It took a while for him to come, however, so in the meantime this quick-thinking woman came up to our apartment and turned off the main water supply in our apartment and helped me contain the water in the kitchen area, mopping it up. Although they were speaking French once her husband arrived, I could tell that neither she nor I were impressed by his idea of opening the washer door to ... uh ... empty it out so he could vacuum it up with the water vacuum. Yes, gallons more of water came streaming out until we figured out a better method for water removal!

[P: what is it with the French and water??? Who excavates around and exposes a pipe leak without first turning off the water? Who opens a side-loading washer full - to the top! - of water without something to catch the water - so they can then vacuum it up with a water vacuum?? A: someone who really likes to use his water vacuum, I guess...It was only the quick thinking of K and the concierge's wife that contained the water and kept it from spilling out onto the parquet floor in the dining room, and all over the hallway carpet...]

K: One other great part of this experience was a first for us: a repair man, Mr. Duparc, came the same day! He was not, however, able to fix the machine on the spot, but is in the process of ordering a part which is supposed to come soon. We have accommodating friends, however, who have let us borrow their machines in the meantime. This is a relief because our first weekend laundry load (5 loads, our typical amount in one week) after the mishap cost 25 euros at the local laundromat or...(gulp!) $40! YACK!

P: Finally, something similar happened to our toilet - one day the water wouldn't stop running. But toilets in France are not like toilets in America - surprised? There is a convenient little valve on the pipe running into our toilet that you can use to shut the water off - but the top of the toilet does not come off by simply lifting it off. Our toilet in particular has "push-buttons" in the middle of the lid on top, and the buttons are surrounded by a ring that has to be rotated in order to screw the buttons loose from the mechanism contained inside, and then the lid can be lifted off. And we were told that once a person does this, it's difficult to get the lid back on correctly. So we decided to wait for the plumber, who was called in by our friendly neighborhood concierge - yep, the same one that "helped" with the washer. The plumber came and repaired the toilet this Friday, after a week of using a bucket of water to flush the toilet after every time we used it.

Sigh - I much prefer water in contained areas, like fountains, pools, lakes, and rivers - that don't flood...and there's plenty of those around here too :)

Take care,
-PKBD