Crappy Morning

I live in a bottom floor apartment. Last night, when I was just finally getting to sleep, I heard vacuous gurgling noises from my bathroom. Figuring it was just a portal to the deeper reaches of Hell opening up in my toilet, I decided to leave it be. I mean, I was rather tired at that point, and the armies of darkness generally don’t make much of a mess. They even lock the door behind them when they leave to go terrorize the countryside. Plus I had my fan on, so I’d still be cool despite the venting from the infernal fires burning in the netherworld.

I woke up (late) this morning and went into the bathroom as usual. Last night’s noises were not on the tip of my mind until I rounded the corner. While there was not a cavernous entryway to the realms of eternal damnation, there was a bathtub filled with water and gunk that I’m rather sure I didn’t put in there. I looked in the toilet and water level was rather high.

Oh goody – sewage backup. Mental note: don’t flush.

It turns out that somebody probably flushed something (paper towel, grapefruit, puppy, whatever) that they shouldn’t have. The items made it down to my level and started heading towards the main pipe out to the sewer, but didn’t make it all the way. Since it made it past my outlet pipes and since I am at the lowest level, all the water that couldn’t drain down came back up through my pipes. Nobody on the upper floors even knew there was a problem.

I hung around until the maintenance guy cleared things through. Everything finally did go down. Now I just need to build up enough resolve to actually use the tub again. I’ve had mildew before and I could live with that, but somehow this one seems different. I’m thinking it may take lots and lots of bleach (sorry, Ms N). After all, this was disgusting enough to keep the armies of darkness at bay.