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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Is that poop? Nah it can't be

Last week we were getting torrential downpours almost every day of the week. Normally our basement floods a bit, but its never a big deal. I've set our things to the highest point in the basement so as not to get them ruined.

We noticed on Saturday the puddle was getting much larger than normal and seemed to be pooling in a storage room we don't have access to. Sallie called the landlords to warn them and they said, "Not a big deal. there's nothing in there that water will ruin."

Fair enough. They say they will come by eventually and take care of it as long as we don't need them there immediately. No problem right?

So we go paint balling Sunday and come home tired. I force myself to do laundry and notice that the puddle has gotten bigger and now smells. I figure this is due to the fact that the sun came our for a bit and probably made the water a bit moldy.

I run that load of laundry and go upstairs for the next few hours. I go downstairs to change out the laundry again and notice the puddle has become even large.

Again, I think nothing of it and go upstairs. A movie passes and I go downstairs yet again to change out the laundry. "What is that smell? Its sort of familiar."

I drop the laundry off and notice that the deepest part of the puddle has a foamy layer on top. Upon closer inspection I notice that the "mold" isn't mold, but is paper. Toilet paper to be exact.

"Oh, what's that next to the toiler paper?"

At this point, I don't know in my mind what I expected to be paired with toilet paper, but I definitely didn't expect the obvious. It went something like this.

"Maybe I'll get closer. Is that... ew... f-ing gross... ewww... thats poop... oh god, OH GOD! There's poop and toiler paper floating in pee."

I ran upstairs feeling completely unclean. I showered for 35 minutes. By now it was 10 oclock at night and the landlord was already coming over in the morning so we didn't do anything.

I woke up the next day to find one of the landlords looking extremely pissed and carrying window air conditioning units out to the dumpster. I avoided eye contact (even though it wasn't my fault I felt guilty) and went to work.

Sallie picked up a scrub brush, bottle of bleach, and rubber gloves reaching to my elbows. The landlords did a good job of cleaning up the mess, but we still had to throw up any of our stuff that was floating in possibly our entire buildings urine. We ended up throwing out a lot out and finding a few turds and tampons hiding behind boxes the landlords must've missed. All in all, it was gross.

My only complaint about living in St. Louis thus far is the sewer system. Since most of them were put into place 150 years ago, most of them work like they were built 150 years ago.

2 comments:

Aunt L said...

LOL - all I could think of during your "lovely" story was Mr. Henkey from South Park. Simply Priceless!

Marni said...

Sal is the only person I know, who will reliably deal with shit like that without thinking twice or complaining. I can't count the times I'd yell out "hey Sal! I'll pay you a buck to clean this up!" when we lived in all those shitty Columbia apartments. You've got a keeper!