You know how I always say I’m the handyman of the house? Well we’ve been having plumbing problems and I asked TD to help me out. (He’s got to learn sometime aye?) And after a few minutes on his first attempt of plumbing (he needed to remove the bidet from the guest room), I heard screams, “HELP! HELP! EMERGENCY!!!”
I ran to the bathroom to find water spraying everywhere and TD fighting to stop the flow of water. It was like he was battling this monster and that water was really strong! He was getting it on his eyes, mouth and was getting soaked! I hollered for the maid to run and get the building plumbers (thank God we live in a condo!) then promptly plopped our precious duvet onto the doorway – hoping it would stop the quickly rising water.
Then while wating for the plumbers to arrive, we started hauling out all the stuff that could be damaged from the bathroom. We were tempted to start mopping the floor, but first we wiped everything that got wet thoroughly, before anything was damaged even more, then placed them in towels and absorbent mats.
When the plumbers arrived, it was so frustrating because we couldn’t even tell them straight just to shut off our main water supply. They were already looking at my poor husband struggling and yet they stood there gaping at him.
*Sidenote: This is one of the frustrating things about being in a country wherein most of the people don’t speak English AND our government taking so long to approve budget for language classes for my husband’s office.Would you believe my husbands office had to fight for the budget for Bahasa lessons? It’s not standard for DFA to give language training for Filipino diplomats (unless you consider listening to CASSETTE tapes sufficient language traning) Some other countries even give their diplomats 4-6 months language training prior to assignment so that they can be effective diplomats in non-english speaking countries. Then when they arrive here they are sent to Yogyakarta to practice speaking Bahasa before they start work in their embassy. (Sa atin, bahala ka nalang diyan.)
The water was in the hallway and starting to enter the 2 bedrooms! ACK. So using pails the maid and I started getting water from the floor and into the shower drain. Then finally after several more minutes (poor TD!) the water stopped. It looked like this. Kadiri yung dumi diba? May centralized filter na kami sa lagay na yan ha!
The broken bidget
It’s not obvious in my pictures but the floor is covered in water
According to TD, he was loosening the bidet hose from the main pipe (which he turned off), but the main pipe suddenly broke off with very little force from his end. I am not surprised because the building is old, and the steel used in plumbing pipes is quite soft.
What you see below, is the bidet switch which broke of from the “male” part which you screw into the female counterpart. (Yes I know it’s very weird but apt terminology!) Sorry pero sobrang kadiri talaga yung loob ng mga pipes.
This is a picture of the dried broken pipe the next day. It’s still super gross. Can anyone please tell me if this is normal? I don’t seem to recall seeing something like this when I fixed the plumbing in our Manila condo, but that was my only plumbing experience so I wouldn’t know. 
So how did it get fixed? The building plumber went with TD to ACE hardware to get buy stuff to fix it. Thank God it was just 8pm and ACE was still open! Or else we would have gone through an entire night without water! Ewwwww.
The fixed bidet! (I had to face it the other way coz the nozzle looks super gross with rusty brown bits)
Despite all my complains on the quality of the water, I’m just happy that we have water. Better to have dirty, cruddy water than none at all, right? Right!?!?
What happened to all the stuff that got wet you say? Stay tuned for my moisture, mold and mildew battling tips tomorrow!
This sounded like a scene from Pink Panther(Steve Martin)!
Bidets are evil, I tell you. I tried to use the bidet at 2 am, while water was out (welcome to Maynilad), and didn’t realize the handle part got stuck. So when water returned at 5 am, it flowed non-stop. Went cascading down the stairs to the ground floor like a waterfall. And left a 3-inch mess in the bedroom!
You’ll soon look back at this and manage to laugh at the silliness 🙂
Hahaha (ooops sorry to laugh) but it’s good to know we are not the only ones who are having some bidet trouble. OMG what time did you realize the water was back?!? I hope nobody got grounded or anything. Ack!
It is totally hilarious now when we think about it, but truly a nightmare when you are in the middle of all that water and wondering what else will get damaged or if you’re gonna get electrocuted if reaches any wires. =P
The helpers found out about it (from the ground floor!) at 6 am. Yeah, it wasn’t so funny when we were all on our knees sopping up the mess with towels and pails (cartoon-y images of a boat slowly sinking comes to mind). No major casualties — just a few pairs of shoes and towels. Thanks for the tip on how to salvage leather stuff. I hope never to have to use it 🙂
You’re welcome! Gosh! I hope so too! For the both of us! =D
Think of it this way, at least you got TD to help you out with the plumbing. JG would never do that in a million years. Old pipes are really a problem, once I went home to find our house flooded ankle high because one of the pipes broke. I had to bucket all of it all by myself. At least kayo naagapan, hehe.
Huwaaaaat?!? Seriously JG would not help??? Nako hindi pwede yon! Actually nung una ayaw talaga niya… ako nga dapat pero ang hirap kasi kailangan din ng lakas diba? We really would not have known what to do if we didn’t have professional plumbers on call 24/7. Buti nalang talaga!