Phil's Luck

If any of you are regular visitor's to Phil's Busted Knuckles blog (and if you're not, fix that), you know what I'm talking about here.

So there I was, ranting away t'other night on the keyboard, when suddenly there was a loud BANG! downstairs, and the sound of a firehose. I could hear the water rushing through the pipes, and thought it must be a neighboring suite, but being seated near the duct for the bathroom, I could also detect the sound was apparently coming from my bathroom. As I wasn't using any appliances in the bathroom downstairs at the time, I was a tad concerned.

Descending tout de fucking suite, I arrived at what could only be described as the screaming nightmare of every current or former submariner: water blasting into the space at ludicrous pressure, uncontrolled by anything whatsoever.

From the supply line somewhere underneath the porcelain throne. 

Quick as a flash, I flipped the cut-off closed. No dice. Standing ankle deep in cold water, I couldn't see that the reason the water continued was because the supply tank was also draining back out through the supply line, which was why shutting off the stopcock alone wasn't making the flow stop.

But having been here some years, I also made a point of knowing where the master water cut-off was outside, so out I dashed, and flipped that as well. When I returned, blissful silence, but again, only because in my absence, the supply tank had finally emptied itself. Inside the room.

I also remembered that the management company's two hired plumbing flunkies, Goofus and Doofus, had done exactly one thing right in their just-before-COVID replumbing of the building I was occupying: they'd installed a whole-house cutoff upstairs. So I went up, accessed that, and threw it for good measure.

Then went out to turn the rest of the building's water back on, and ponder my next move(s).

Elapsed time: maybe three minutes. Now I returned to the scene of the catastrophe, and started bailing and bucketing water into the john, before it soaked through walls, etc. It was about a bathtub's worth, and the rest I set upon with all the spare linens I could locate.

Now with time to think, I explored the source of the problem.

About two-plus years ago, Goofus and Doofus had come through, and re-piped (so to speak) each unit. Why, the management company and God alone knows. The new supply pipeline they'd installed hangs two feet lower, robbing that much useable space, and creating another attic headache in what was once almost all useful storage space.

Then installed the afore-mentioned drop line with individual cutoffs, connected to not new copper plumbing, but out of sheer cheapness and laziness, PEX lines. To which they'd attached new through-wall supply lines for toilet, sink, and such, but which, unlike the '70s-era original plumbing, now had shiny new individual point source cut-offs, enabling plumbing changes at whim by tenants or management.

So looking at the now empty toilet tank, I noted that the supply line from wall to flush valve was hanging as limp as Grandpa's johnson, completely detached from the wall cut-off.

After unscrewing it from the tank valve, I was looking at a virtually pristine stainless-reinforced supply line, without anything wrong.

Oh, except for the wall coupling end having become completely effing detached from it, after the joint blew apart.

I found the nut still attached to the supply valve at the wall, and unscrewed that. And found that the brass intake valve was sheared off completely at the nut, hence the sudden blast of water into a small room.

The (ostensibly brass) part was thinner, in actual fact, than gum wrappers I've unwrapped from Wrigley's gum. The shiny still-new label identified the supply hose as - wait for it - made in fucking China.

Aiyeee! Backstabbed by goddamned Chineseium bullshit pot metal masquerading as solid brass. My grandmother's ass. The aluminum on my military dogtags was thicker than was the wall thickness of whatever cheap copper- or brass-plated bullshit this was made, which is how it failed in under two years.

And a glance at the clock let me know the time was conveniently a couple of minutes after even the late-night hours of WallyWorlds had shuttered them for the night, so I had to wait all night until the next morning to secure a replacement hose, and a back-up spare.

See if you can guess how many times that night I needed the necessary plumbing the minute it was no longer an option.

And, come the dawn, only to find that the exact replacement was made of the exact same chineseium bullshit. Same story at Lowe's. Same story at Ace. And two local builder's supply outlets.

Chineseium? EVERYWHERE???Oh, F - - - !!!!!

Mind you, the spiral galvanized steel crapola that was here when I moved in pissed me off royally, but even that sorry old crap had lasted twenty years without a dribble, while this brand-f**king new supply line had full-on failed spectacularly in less than two years' time. Apparently, just for the helluvit.

So after no choice but swapping in a new version of the SOS, and a new toilet tank valve, because removing the old one revealed it sorely needed replacing, I can now only wonder when the next submarine damage control drill will occur, and whether it'll be the supply line, the stop-cocks, the PEX tubing, or some as-yet-undiscovered secret flaw in Goofus' and Doofus' ass-crack apprentice plumbing work.

(And yes, the sales receipt, the five-year warranty, and all associated materials are now zip-locked safely above the mean highwater mark, and any future damages will be handled by attorneys.) I'm seriously considering re-doing the bathroom floor to a height of six inches, including the lower door sill, in swimming pool gunite, covered by new tile, and with a porthole-style nautical door with knee-knocker surround. Yes, I'm serious.

The only happy accident - definitely not Phil's luck here - was that this happened while I was literally sitting right on top of the disaster when it happened, rather than freshly asleep, to find myself floating in a new lake the next morning, nor at work for a twelve-hour shift, and arriving to find the front door had been fire-axed open, after the neighbor's sheetrock was carried away in a wall of torrential flooding, or even worse: out of town for a few days, only to watch my disaster featured on the local news from somewhere else. 

This one is a cloud still floating somewhere off Catalina Island.

And the plumbers were hired by the same management company for the property who hired Julio, Hose-A, and Hose-B Roofers, whose ass-tastic work required removal of three sheets of roofing plywood from my roof, and a complete reroofing of the entire complex, within a year of when they reroofed it all, and about fifteen years after diligent efforts with roofing patch on my part after move-in had completely sealed my roof completely leak-proof, only to fail in multpile places within months of the new job, by the new assholes. (Did I mention the management company is a bunch of dumbass chicks who couldn't change a light bulb, and probably couldn't even manage a decent fake orgasm, let alone coordinating basic property maintenance or competent contractors for any property in the entire state, including a trailer park in Slab City? Anyone looking for a job that's about to be vacant, PM me for a hot lead.)

I cannot wait to build my own place from scratch, and never again depend upon the competency of the notably incompetent. But in the meantime, a sump pump and a flood alarm with cellular text notification are in my things-to-do queue.

And fuck anything made in China, sideways, with a rusty chainsaw, and Michelle Obama's dick.