“If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
This is true about life but, also, our living spaces. The typical home or apartment is full of appliances and fixtures that are constantly experiencing “issues” or complete failure.
If the front door handle isn’t coming loose, it’s sticking…
If it’s not the kitchen faucet that’s dripping, it’s the upstairs shower head…
As soon as you replace the bulb in the front porch light, the single lightbulb hanging from the garage ceiling burns out.
Those are some small examples. What about when something goes REALLY wrong: toilet overflows…the basement floods…a major appliance breaks and requires a major repair or total replacement?
The Stress of Things Going Wrong
I’ve never been a homeowner, but I’ve lived in houses with homeowners and have personal experience with all of these scenarios.
When unexpected things happen, and/or the house is uncomfortable, it can be terribly stressful. And, we human beings don’t always handle stress very well.
Chapter 13 of Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates, is titled ‘Managing Conflicts.’ It outlines a scenario of a household cat accidentally getting into a bedroom where it was not allowed, and this leading to a fight between the two homemates.
I like the cat story as an illustration of how sometimes, within a home, things happen where no one is at fault, but it still causes stress. In times of stress it is easy to overreact and get upset.
When you live with suitable homemates, house “issues” should not be a reason for ongoing conflict. But, they still have the ability to evoke negative emotion.
Another truism: whatever can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible moment.
No Hot Water
One of my past experiences was the winter of 2022. I shared a small Baltimore row house with Kara, who was the homeowner. One night I was at work and received a frantic text from her: “Just a heads up there’s something wrong with the water heater!!!”
As it turns out, the hot water heater was broken. It was the middle of January.
And though Kara called the repair service multiple times trying to get a different answer, unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to come out to take a look at it until the following week.
The house’s water system continued to work just fine–we had full use of the sinks, showers, washing machine and dishwasher. All of the water was just cold.
And so, it was a week of adjustment. For dishes we boiled hot water in a tea kettle and used that to hand wash dishes in the sink. Kara had access to a gym and shower facilities at her workplace, while I went to a nearby friend’s house every other evening to use their shower. We did use the washing machine once or twice, figuring the clothes would still get clean even if the water was ice cold.
I could tell Kara felt a bit guilty over the prolonged lack of hot water. One night we were both in the kitchen and she turned to me to say: “I am so, so sorry. I really am.”
There was no reason for her to feel bad. It wasn’t her fault, just “one of those (unfortunate) things.” The house was still comfortable and functional. In the grand scheme of things, it was no big deal.
My Fault
I could relate to the feeling of guilt, though. A small thing that went wrong one evening was that I was brewing decaf coffee in the Nespresso machine when it malfunctioned and overflowed, dripping a bunch of liquid onto the floor.
It wasn’t my fault exactly, but I was chagrined. If I’d been paying better attention, maybe I’d have noticed that there was something wrong with the machine and cut it off before the wall and floor got soaked with water.
Instead, I had to use half a roll of paper towels to clean up and interrupt Kara to let her know. As a tenant, I was always conscious of the fact that it was Kara’s house, and that she would want to know about anything that was amiss. In this case, she got a big fan out of the basement and positioned it to completely dry the floor and wall behind the shelf where the Nespresso machine sat.
This time it was my turn to say, “I am SO sorry…” and though Kara just laughed and said “oh, if it’s not one thing it’s another.” I still felt bad, and thankful that the mishap didn’t cause permanent damage to her wood dining room floor.
Dishwasher Woes
I currently live not in a house but a managed apartment complex (with two homemates, in a multi-room unit). If anything ever goes wrong we just email the building manager, who sends a member of the maintenance team to take care of it as promptly as possible. It’s certainly convenient. But, it doesn’t mean we’re immune from things going wrong at inopportune times. Our most recent “issue” was that the dishwasher broke… the night before Thanksgiving!
Not only was our building manager and the maintenance team gone for a few days of vacation over the holiday weekend, all three of us were preparing more food and dirtying more dishes than usual.
It wasn’t a total disaster, mostly an inconvenience. The dishwasher announced itself as broken by leaking a small puddle of water onto the kitchen floor. Several bath towels were sullied by the clean up effort, and then we spent over a week washing and drying all of our dishes by hand–the maintenance guy had to order a new part for our machine.
Good Stories and Camaraderie
In the end, it was something to laugh about. Mishaps can make for good stories. In the best case, it can even lead to increased camaraderie among homemates, as you work together to adjust to any problems that arise.
More insights about living with housemates in this post about cleaning.
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