My Quirky New Apartment

Fair warning: I will talk about my toilet in this blog post. Your are warned.

I have moved five times in the last 5 years and lived in 15 different homes in my 30 years on this planet. In fact I moved into home #15 on my 30^th birthday about a month ago. Aside from becoming a master packer I have also learned a thing or two about apartments and I love my latest apartment which is good because the plan is for me and boyfriend to be here for a long time. It’s large enough to accommodate our crap without leaving us crammed into the remaining space. It has reasonably decent natural light. It has good water pressure, hard wood floors and a balcony, which will be surrounded by lovely trees come summer. For the first time we have an apartment shared with no one but ourselves and our cat.

My nomadic living has left me with an appreciation for a place that meets so many of my needs with extra perks like wooden floors and a balcony. So I can forgive little things like when the toilet makes strange noises and emits odd substances. At least I was forewarned. Here is a recap of my first week living with a new toilet.

Day 1: Boyfriend and I move in. When we meet in the hall neighbour makes lighthearted joke about plumbing birthing Cthulu. It is my 30^th birthday so we invite some friends over to enjoy our piles of boxes and bizarre wall colours and get drunk. If toilet attempts to bring about the end times we fail to notice.

Day 2: Late in the night the toilet emits… gurgles. Loud ones. They last a few seconds and then quiet down to small burbles before going silent. We knew it might do something like this and despite the eerie nature of the noise I roll over and go back to sleep.

Day 3: Boyfriend is out-of-town for the next five days and the late night burbles are louder and more unsettling. Possibly because I am alone and having vivid memories of the short film The Blob from one of the crypt keeper movies I saw as a child and it scarred me for life. Seriously, I still can’t swim in water over my head unless I am with someone else who will get eaten first while I get away. I am a bad friend to swim with. Anyway I am a grownup now and a few plumbing noises aren’t going to make me hide under the covers (much).

Day 4: I am invited over to a friend’s house for dinner. I return very late to find the toilet seat has been put down, something I do not normally do. I may have done so in my rush to get out the door and forgotten but this unnatural toilet lid position contributes to my general feeling of unease. When I lift the lid I see that water is all over the bottom of the lid and on the seat. Not small drops either, big splashy ones. I check their colour to ensure they are in fact just water. It is at this point that I realize how violent the burbling must be and that if I ever have the misfortune to be using said facility during an episode I might get to have my first ‘bidet’ experience. Ew. I can live with this though since the violent gurgles seem to mostly occur between 4am and 6am.

Day’s 5 and 6: I continue to hear the toilet in the wee hours due to insomnia. It does not get less eerie. Attempts to see burbles in action prove fruitless as it never lasts long.

Day 7: I am getting used to the night-time burbles and have yet to be treated to a splashed behind. I return home from class in the afternoon and rush to use the facilities. I sit down without looking in the toilet first because I am an adult and don’t believe rumours of rats coming up through the plumbing. Surely there could be nothing ominous mere inches from my butt.

As I am finishing the phone rings and I rush from the bathroom without bothering to flush. The lever needs to be held down for several seconds and I don’t have time because SOMEONE WANTS TO TALK TO ME! (I am lonely because boyfriend is out-of-town) After I am done on the phone I return to the bathroom because the not-flushed toilet will bother me. I look down and discover that the bowl had been pretty fully when I sat down.

Not actual event. Picture depicts a later foam incident for "not gross" purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is full of soapy foam more than halfway up the bowl. This creeps the hell out of me. Much as I believe in and try to practice water conservation I am not one of those people who can pee without flushing just to save water. It’s just creepy to me out to sit over it later. Also gross, what if it splashes?

So now there is this mystery foam in my toilet and it was mere centimeters from my bottom.

Aw, it looks like a heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I choose to assume it is soap and not some weird chemical, this helps. But the real question is where did it come from? I chalked up all the burbling to water in the pipes. Now comes this unknown foamy white substance.

How does plumbing work exactly?

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