This is my home:

I don’t know what I did in my life to deserve leakyness everywhere. It started in the Asheville Gracelyn House. An old brick mansion converted into five apartments, I assumed that there may be some maintenance issues associated with living in a house nearly 100 years old. The hardwood floors (perfect for Bogie to bat around mice toys), faux fireplace, and quirky L-shaped layout was endearing, despite one of the tiniest bathrooms ever. This house was also the first house that “belonged” to Derrick, Bogie and me as a family, so I couldn’t “hate on it” too badly.

Until the ceiling basically collapsed. I came home one day from work, and Derrick was walking around in his underpants. This was the first night the heat cut on for the year, and for some reason the last person who adjusted the “communal thermostat” upstairs set it for 96 degrees. We are almost positive that this extreme heat affected the pipes in some way, as within the next week a mysterious leak appeared in our computer room. Of course, in the room with the most valuable electronics. The leak spread at one point to our bathroom light fixture, so we were horrified about turning on that light and risking electrocution.

We lived without ceiling in part for a month.

A series of multiple maintenance men and plumbers came through the house, two of which we became really friendly with. One of them was very manly (sort of a combination of Dean Cain and Dane Cook), loved horror movies, and he gave us our “Invisible Man” painting that hangs in the living room. The other was a short stocky man with goggly glasses. He was quiet, but nice to Bogie and had a few cats of his own because they make “such good friends”. Part of the reason why we had so many maintenance men is because no one could quite figure out if it was the radiator pipes leaking or a water pipe. Once the radiator pipes were fixed, our upstairs neighbor Moira’s toilet started leaking. Instead of paying for additional maintenance men, the handsome landlord came over in his suit and instructed her how to place/empty a dish underneath the toilet to avoid such problems in the future.

Later, before moving out, a maintenance man showed up to fix another leak—one we didn’t even know about! Apparently our kitchen sink was dripping into the basement apartment and causing a mess. (We didn’t have a dishwasher and always used the sink for washing). After fixing this leak, they never bothered to close the hole between the walls and our cabinets. When moving out, we discovered mice poop all over many of our appliances/blender/etc. Terrible!

In Flagstaff, our leaks subsided…or so I thought. Robotussined out of my mind and watching Pretty Poison on TV on an October Friday, I heard a terribly loud knock. My downstairs neighbor (I never quite figured out if he was albino or gay) stood there, disappointed and sad. Our toilet was dripping into his bedroom airvent. I’d noticed some water around the tub but thought I’d been splish splashing around. I was so out of it that I begged the repair guys to call my landlord because they were much more coherent/knowledgeable than me.

Of course, since moving to Milledgeville, we’ve had several leaks. One under the kitchen sink. One from the hall bathroom showerhead. The basement French doors were leaking and were fixed but are leaking again. Our landlord Ricky and his friend/handyman Kenny are here right now trying to find a leak that’s mysteriously moving from our upstairs shower into the downstairs guest bedroom. They keep cutting holes in the wall, unscrewing things, making noise. Derrick is supervising.

Once again, the water trail follows me. I know that part of living in a home is dealing with these regular maintenance issues. But something about these leaks is too constant to put it up to chance. I claim responsibility for bringing them here. I don’t mind.