Plumbers

We've been having some plumbing problems. Pretty much since we moved in one of our toilets hasn't worked (we have 2). Pretty much there's no seal in the tank and water just flows through constantly. We had 4 different plumbers come and none of them could fix it so we just turned it off. Finally, 5 months and one extra roommate later, we have decided that we need to do something about this. Our plumber thinks that we need to redo the entire bathroom and we're all frustrated enough to take our own hammers to the tile but we figured we should check with the landlord first. This is where the good part begins.

We went down to see our landlord on Wednesday night and tell him about the problem. He didn't quite seem to understand but after explaining it 4 times, we think he finally got it. He called his plumber and the guy said he would come on Thursday. So my roommates and I coordinated our schedules so that at least one of us would be home all the time. Thursday night about 10pm we finally resigned ourselves to believe that he wasn't coming. Friday is everyone's off day here and so we went about our lives and were gone all day. That evening about 7 pm the guy calls and says that he came to fix it but we weren't home so he couldn't. It's true that we weren't home but I really don't believe that he actually tried to come and work on a day when absolutely no one works. He said he would come back on Saturday so, naively, my roomates and I once again rearranged our schedules so that someone would be home. Again, he didn't come. Instead he showed up at 6pm on Sunday night when we weren't expecting him. And you thought American plumbers were always late!

So the guy comes in, starts to look at it. We explain the problem 7 times and he finally gets it and then says 'you have had someone work on this before?' 'yes and every time is still breaks.' 'But obviously those people weren't professionals. I am a professional.' hmmmm 'ok, well that's great. We're ready to get this fixed.' 'Do you have any spare tires?' hmmm? 'Spare tires? You need a spare tire?' 'yes, I think that I can make the part I need. If only you have a tire' 'well, we don't have a tire. Now what?' 'We go and find one'. So they guys headed out into the street. I don't really know what all happened but about 15 minutes later they showed up with a tire. Of course the new 'part' didn't work, surprise surprise! So then he says 'well, why don't we just replace the entire top part. You go to the souq and buy all the parts we need. Be sure to not buy Chinese parts b/c they're no good. Spanish or American only. I'll be back next week to put the parts in.' Next week?!?!? And I'm supposed to go and buy parts? Like I can do that, go to the men's souq and buy plumbing parts that I have no idea about? I couldn't do that in English, much less Arabic!

At this point, we've successfully negotiated that he will go and buy the parts and bring them back next Sunday. then he'll put them in. We're pretty much 99% sure that it's not going to work, seeing as how we've already had this exact same thing done before and it broke the next day, but what can you do? The landlord is a little uncomfortable with us taking out our frustrations on the bathroom and wants to be sure that we only do that if it's our last alternative. So, until Sunday, we'll still just have 1 bathroom. Now that we have 3 of us living here we pretty much have to stand in line...it's like I'm living in a dorm again!