At 11pm the toilet decided to run water into the overflow pipe…endlessly. I knew there should be a relatively simple solution. I pulled at the top of the toilet water tank. It would not move. I prised it with my nail file. I twisted it with all my might and strength and a fair bit of grunting. To no avail. I searched in vain for anything resembling a tap under the toilet. Nothing.
Risk of flooding ascertained as nil….. I sent a message to the landlord, gave up and went to bed. The noise of running water became nonsensically louder and louder, it was incessant and annoying and kept me wide awake. I had uncontrollable thoughts that involved lobbing the toilet out of the window.
I stared at the ceiling. I sighed loudly. I had a euphoric moment when I found ear plugs and a mental crash when I realised they didn’t block out the irritating sound of running water. Unsuccessfully, I tried:
- not to think about the waste of water
- not to calculate how many bathfuls of water would be lost
- not to think about the pointlessness of turning off the shower to shampoo my hair
- not to let the noise drive me beserk
2 am. Unable to stand it anymore, I leapt out of bed and stamped my fury back to the bathroom. I stabbed uselessly at the flush mechanism hoping for a miracle. I actually pleaded out loud with the toilet. It teased me by ebbing the water flow for a few seconds then poured endlessly again. I groaned. I shouted at the toilet. Then I used brute force and wrenched the top off the tank (breaking part of the flush mechanism) and saw that the valve inside was broken. Unable to close the valve, there was nothing to do except wait until the morning when someone could tell me what to do.
I went back to bed for a bout of not sleeping and thought about the role of the watchman. For years I lived in rented accommodation in the Middle East where a group of apartments or houses had the benefit of an onsite watchman available 24 hours to solve all manner of maintainence related problems. Armed with only a few words of English, a screwdriver and an elastic band, inadequate or inappropriate solutions often led to additional problems. There were frustrating moments, and I had been scathing about the reliance on the screwdriver more than once. However, in the early hours of the morning as the sound of that water was pushing me near insanity, I felt with great certainty that any one of the watchmen would have known how to switch off the water in the bathroom. I should have watched more closely. Grrr.
7am. A message from my landlord. That small thing that looks like a screw on the pipe under the toilet can be turned 90 degrees to switch off the water. Nooooooo. Something so simple. How could I not know this? Why was it not in my handbook for life? Screwdriver in the slot. Turn. Peace.
So, the watchman was right after all. A screwdriver. I just haven’t worked out what the elastic band is for yet…..
Emma Moves 