I've been a bit incognito on my own thread (again), and I apologize for that, but I've been having a rough two weeks. Last week I woke up on Tuesday to find I had no hot water. After a brutal cold shower I checked out the basement on my way out the door and sure enough there was water all over the floor. Not the flood I had the last time my water heater went, but enough. Turn to day 2, another breathtakingly cold shower, and a visit from the plumber later confirmed that my barely 6 year old water heater needed to be replaced. It didn't rust out at the bottom, but some random piece on the top of it broke in a way that the repair guy had never seen before. Luckily my water heater is a rental so at least it didn't cost me anything to replace. I did have to sign another contract with the water heater rental place, and of course now I'll be paying more per month. I had hot water again, but dealing with everything really put me out of sorts. It felt like the broken water heater was symbolic of how I've been feeling lately.
Everything was good until I came home late on Tuesday night to find a note on my door from my downstairs neighbor that there was a problem with a pipe leading to my water heater and it was leaking all over the place. I trudged down to the basement and sure enough there was a mini lake Michigan going on down there. Actually there was more water now than when the water heater had broken. I called the water heater rental company emergency line to have them send someone out and before they hung up they told me that if the problem was with anything but the unit itself I was going to have to pay for it COD. I thought that comment was a bit odd, but I sat around waiting for the plumber. He arrived a bit after midnight, looked at it for 5 seconds and told me that the problem was with the pipe and I'd have to schedule an appointment for the next day for them to fix the problem - on me. It wouldn't be covered by my brand new, less than a week old contract to the tune of about what he estimated to be about $200. As soon as he left I may have had a bit of a sobbing break down.
Maybe. Probably.
The next day I had no idea exactly what plumbing service the water heater people had sent out so I hit the yellow pages up to find one. I called up a couple of local plumbers, but neither of them took credit cards, and I defintely didn't have the cash to cover this. I ended up having to use Roto Rooter because they would take my credit card. I was off at work while my father graciously volunteered to wait with the plumber. There was a bit of drama when the plumber called me to tell me that he wasn't going to be able to do anything because he needed my downstairs neighbor to be home to open his water lines so he cold drain the pipes. (It's an older condo and we have shared pipes instead of all having our own). I'm panicking at work because I have absolutely have no idea how in the world I'm supposed to schedule to fix this now. I can't very well go and ask my neighbor to take the day off of work. The plumber finds a way around the problem, but in doing so turns off the water to the four condo units in my building (not realizing the one water main was for all 4 units, not just my unit and the guy below me), irritating my next door neighbor who needed to take a shower before heading to work. Still he fixed it, but the bill came up to a whopping $500 (and that was after he took off $100).
The pipe was probably damaged the week before during the water heater installation, but since it's the pipe, not the unit the water heater rental place won't cover it.
I'm still in a bit of shock over the bill. I think the one part he had to replace was about $13 and the rest was all labor charges. I'm just feeling numb about the entire thing right now. I think part of me is just giving up and just feels defeated by so many things. If I wasn't going to lose even more money cancelling flights, and the non-refundable race fees (not to mention my friend who would lose money as well) I'd probably be cancelling my trip. Honestly, I'm just not feeling very enthusiastic about it (or anything) right now. All I'm feeling is stressed, worn out and a bit defeated. I'm hoping to hear some good news from the bank soon. I applied for a debt consolidation loan a few weeks ago and am waiting to hear back if I'm approved. Consolidating would take a world of weight off my back so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed. My credit check came back fine, and I'm not borrowing a very large amount so I'm hopefull that I should be fine.
That's an awful lot of back story to why I haven't been around, but planning has been a bit slow anyways. I've been doing some comparison shopping for car service for our trip. I was going to book using Happy Limo, but they wanted to charge us an extra $15 to make 2 stops dropping off at the airport. I can understand a small upcharge since we are leaving out of opposite terminals, but $15 seems a bit excessive. If I can't find it cheaper we will probably just use the Mears shuttle.
