Dateline: at the junction of two leaky pipes.
I’ve discovered the secret purpose of the various bits of infrastructure in my apartment here in Mexico City: it’s to make me look like a fool. This only dawned on me yesterday, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I’m right. And I’m feeling pretty foolish right about now. Circumstances are making me look bad. Not merely bad, but kind of high-maintenance, whiny bad. If you’re a guy who considers himself pretty handy around the house, this isn’t a good thing.
By infrastructure, I really mean plumbing and electricity. Shockingly, electricity was the first to ambush me. Shortly after moving in, the power went out early one morning. Noting that the electricity was on elsewhere in the building, I went to the breaker box to reset it. It didn’t appear to have been tripped, but I flipped the switch anyway. Nothing happened. I tried a couple of more times, again with the same result. So I broke down and called Rafael, my landlord and explained the situation. He came out in his pajamas, flipped the circuit breaker on and off once, and Lo! There was electricity. I was mortified and apologized while simultaneously re-explaining that I had done the very same thing.
Some months later, after more power failures, and some alarming sizzling sounds coming from the breaker box, we found out what the problem was. The circuit breaker itself had a loose connection inside the box. Once replaced, it has worked fine ever since. Though I was indeed vindicated, the fact of the matter is that impressions of idiocy don’t really wear off that fast. Especially when they keep getting refreshed.
So once the electricity left off tormenting me, the plumbing took over. Take the water supply, for example. In my apartment it stops with alarming regularity. Of course it’s the typical, failure-prone Mexican system, where water slowly flows from the city pipes into a cistern under the patio. From there it’s pumped up to a tinaco on the roof from where it flows leisurely into the pipes via gravity. The whole setup runs on electricity and a set of cantankerous float valves, electrical sensors, and relays, all of which suffer from the same “Transylvanian” maintenance schedule. Which is to say that they are replaced or serviced only after they fail. Of course when there’s no electricity, the whole system runs on borrowed time anyway.
Only a few weeks after my electrical run-in, the water stopped and I called Rafael: “I don’t have any water.”
“Don’t worry; the system is back on. You should have water in 20 minutes,” he replied confidently. I was relieved he was already onto the problem. Twenty minutes later, I tried the faucets. No water. I merely heard a gentle sucking sound. The system was pulling in air as water somewhere below me flowed out. I tried all the faucets. Same result. I waited another five minutes and tried again. Same result again. So I went downstairs to talk to Rafael, who happened to be in his shop.
“It’s working,” he insisted.
“No, it’s not,” I replied. “I just tried it before I came down here. There’s no water.”
“Let me show you,” he said, walking toward the sink in his shop. He turned the valve and to my horror, water flowed out exuberantly.
“Yeah,” I said, “but that’s just water that’s already in the pipes. There’s no water in my apartment.”
“It’s fine,” he insisted. “Go back and check it again.” Meanwhile the water kept flowing out of the faucet. I could feel my embarrassment rising and hoped I wasn’t blushing.
Sure enough, I returned to my apartment and the water flowed almost as if nothing had happened. I felt foolish and could almost hear the pipes quietly snickering to themselves, “foolish gringo, hahaha!” It’s nasty when plumbing makes fun of you, but I figured this was to be my last insult. After all, how many times can this kind of weird, intermittent problem occur? And to me, who normally has such good mechanical Karma?
Ah, if only! Recently, my toilet flush valve started leaking. Intermittently, of course. Again I notified Rafael, who sent up his handyman, Arturo. Since I couldn’t see anything wrong with the valve, I persuaded myself and Arturo that the problem was the flush handle getting stuck against the tank lid. He duly replaced it. That was about six weeks ago. But it turns out that wasn’t the problem. So Arturo came back and looked again, and we both decided it really must be the valve. I felt rather foolish at having misdiagnosed the problem initially, but Arturo was too polite to comment. But he did go buy a valve. Meanwhile, actually installing the valve seems to have fallen by the wayside, and guess what? Now the toilet appeared to have fixed itself. But don’t tell anyone as they still think the valve needs to be replaced, and my plumbing credibility is hanging by a thread.
Oh, and I had an intermittent problem with the hot water too. Like in the middle of a shower, suddenly the hot water would slow to a trickle. Mind you, the cold still worked fine. That was such a weird problem even I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. Later, after my cold shower, I’d check the hot water and it’d be fine again. But now when I told Rafael, he didn’t believe me. “Maybe the hot water doesn’t like you,” he said, chuckling. It took me a week of hot/cold/hot showers to persuade him that I wasn’t imagining this problem. When he finally looked into it, he apologized and said I was right. That particular problem now seems to be fixed.
Then about a month ago, my shower started leaking. Not a lot, but definitely leaking. So, figuring I’d give Rafael all the facts and let him decide what to do, I stuck a bucket under it to measure the flow and then sent Rafael an e-mail: “my shower is leaking about 1.5 liters a day. I personally don’t really care if you fix it or not, but I’m letting you know.” I never heard back from him, figured he didn’t care about a small leak, so I resigned myself to a leaky shower.
Since I don’t particularly like to waste water, I left the bucket under the leak and started to use it to flush the toilet. But the sound of the dripping water began to annoy me, especially as the bucket in the shower stall created an odd sort of resonance, making the sound MUCH louder than anyone might imagine. And then, perhaps fortunately, the shower began to leak in earnest earlier this week. Now it was leaking 3 liters an hour, and even using the captured water to flush the toilet, a lot of it was ending up going down the drain. So this time I messaged Rafael on WhatsApp, and he agreed to send Arturo around on Monday.
So what’s happened since? Yesterday the shower fixed itself, and now it’s not leaking at all.
As for me, I’m busy looking for a hole to crawl into.
Lee Steele said:
I have the same problem up in the states. At work, my computer malfunctions, and I call tech support. They come, and the issue is resolved by their mere presence. The computer knows. Same with any weird noises under the hood of my car. The car gets its act together, unassisted, in the presence of a real mechanic. It’s a conspiracy.
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Lee! The disturbing part of all this is that I used to be the guy whose presence would make stuff work. It’s so unsettling to be on the other side of this game. Really, it’s a disturbing first for me. I’m hoping these are isolated incidents. Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
garydenness said:
This is proof that ‘manana’ has nothing to do with procrastination or laziness but is in fact a tried and tested policy favoured by those who know that if you leave something well alone it will usually fix itself. Probably…
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Gary! Haha! Indeed….at least sometimes…for a while…maybe. Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
AStone said:
It’s GREMLINS. I’ve got them here in California. They are also responsible for things like hiding your car keys under that pile of junk mail from LAST WEEK and stealing one or two unmatched socks from the dryer.
My gremlins always relent (except with socks) and return the item as soon as I have announced to ANYONE that I’ve lost my [fill-in-blank] and have no competency in managing my life or environment.
Usually within 5 minutes of my call for help: “Steve honey, I can’t find my [f-i-b]. Please don’t waste any time looking for it, but if you see it put it on the table.” Voila! There it is, often right where I looked for it first and remember putting it down. The worst part is I’m starting to HEAR their maniacal mocking laughter as I furiously search for the missing item.
Gremlins are the tools of the forces of ENTROPY and the leading cause of feeling like an idiot.
Hugs! ~Arion
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Ay Arion! You’re right. And these Mexican gremlins are having a LOT of fun tormenting their new Gringo victim. Fortunately (?) I don’t have a dryer, haha. Saludos and thanks for commenting!
LikeLike
florentinogutierrezr said:
Kim, you really, really sent me to the floor with uncontrollable laughter, while I pictured in my mind that scene of Rafael in his pajamas flipping the switch off and then off to restore power, and thinking “this gringo loco, yeah, right, he did that before and nothing happened.” Now, seriously, I’ve had my share of bizarre problems with electricity and water too. It was worse, really worse in the past, and I think the problem was the very low quality of the components, as well the as lack of uniformity in sizes and measures. Every builder seemed to use a particular set of sizes and measures for fittings, switches, holes, screws, nuts, washers… loose leads, etc. I’m very happy to say that this has improved a lot, and the modern, recently buillt houses, with all-new fixtures and components, don’t get you into those troubles. And, for the dripping shower that suddenly fixes itself, many non-Mexican will think that this is a joke, but I sure can tell them that this is a perfectly common thing in surreal Mexico.
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Tino! The plumbing guy is supposedly here today, though I haven’t heard a word from him or from Rafael. I’m sure he’ll knock while I’m in the shower. But I suspect that the next step in this drama is that tomorrow the shower starts to leak again in earnest.
And I totally agree with you about the quality of the components. The hose we purchased to replace the one that broke on the sink cost a mere $20 pesos. In Boston, I just replaced some similar hoses under my sink before I left for Mexico, and they cost $12 USD, or about $216 pesos. I seriously doubt the 20 peso hose is going to hold up very long. Fortunately it’s not exactly my problem.
Saludos and thanks for your kind comment!
LikeLike
Theresa Diaz Gray said:
I’ve always called it a breaker box. Maybe it’s a west coast thing?
I did live in one house that still had fuses, but that was long ago in another century and country.
Speaking of breakers, apparently we forgot to ask the electrician to put in a master switch so he didn’t. That goes along with the water shut off under the kitchen sink, though we had them in the two bathroom sinks (maybe they were put in by different plumbers? Quien sabe). Though only one of the toilets has a shut off…always these interesting discoveries.
regards,
Theresa
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Theresa!
The lack of proper shut-offs below my bathroom sink nearly lead to the entire apartment being flooded at one point. The flexible hose had become so brittle that a small bump broke it, and then water poured out until I stopped it with my finger. Then it was a dramatic effort to try to figure out what (within arm’s reach) could stop the flow while I went to get something more robust. Fortunately the low water pressure was my friend this time. American water pressure would have certainly ensured a flooded apartment. So one weakness offset another. Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
Felipe Zapata said:
Rafael must be soooo happy he rented to a Gringo who wants everything to work right.
Maybe you should build your own home. We built our own home, and never have problems with water or electricity.
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Felipe! Yeah, renting to foreigners is a mixed bag. We can be so picky expecting everything to work the way it should. On the other hand, I am probably paying a bit above market for the apartment, and I pay on the first every month in cash. And that cash never fails to work. But yeah, someday I’ll get my own place here. In Boston, everything works perfectly because I keep it running that way. Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
William said:
If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been having problems up here too. A couple weeks ago my toilet wouldn’t flush. This is something that happens once in a great while, and I always call the city. They flush out the line running from the street and things start flowing normally again. They seemed skeptical since the problem was just with the toilet, and not my other drains. But I told them that this has happened three or four times in the past… not just with me but with my neighbor also. So they put a hose down the line. However, this time the toilet still wasn’t going down. They said that the problem was with my toilet, and that I needed to call a plumber. Well, not a minute had passed after their truck pulled away, when the toilet suddenly went down. I felt like calling the service department and saying, “I told you that was the problem!”
I was happy that I had avoided having to call a plumber… BUT, last week my water heater stopped working. Since I was leaving for a long weekend in Chicago, I waited until my return to call the plumber. He replaced a part that had gone bad a couple years ago, and it seemed to be working normally. But by that afternoon, the pilot light had gone out again, and I couldn’t relight it. I called the plumber again, and asked, “Do you think I should just get a new water heater?” The plumber said that brand of heater is prone to problems, so I told him to go ahead and put in a new one (a different make). I am finally able to take a hot shower… and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else goes wrong!
Saludos,
Bill
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Bill! Your toilet problem is a bit like mine in that it (sort of) fixed itself. But as far as I can tell, your appliances aren’t threatening your masculinity. Lucky man! Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
ladyofthecakes said:
You call it a “breaker box” over there? I’ve just learnt something new…
Very entertaining, as ever. Keep it up 🙂 The fridge is going to conk it next, I can just feel it…
LikeLike
Kim G said:
Hola Simone! Actually, I’m not sure I’d take “breaker box” to the bank. It’s an electrical box with circuit breakers, but yeah, “breaker box” has replaced “fuse box.” As for the fridge, well…let’s just say that it’s no longer a problem.
Saludos and thanks for stopping by!
LikeLiked by 1 person