Life In A Tenament

Leaky pipes in the bathroom have been an on-again off-again situation for the last 20 years here in my Castle High Atop Second Avenue. At one point it got so bad, and the "super" at the time was so unresponsive that the ceiling collapsed and you could actually see through a hole into the upstairs bathroom. The ceiling, or sections of it, have been replaced at least twice.

Here's what it has been looking like for the last couple of months:

Not another collapse, this was intentionally cut away by the "super", in preparation for another patch job. This was necessitated by another leak in a shower stall up above that previous tenants installed. It had been leaking for months. Of course I called and was assured over and over that it had been fixed. I eventually got the "super" up to see that the ceiling had completely split open from water damage.

Today the plumber is upstairs, noisily banging away and sawing pipes and generally doing whatever half-assed repair will get by until the next time whatever is "fixed" turns out to be still leaking. In the meantime, all manner of gravel and dirt and (I'm sure) asbestos residue is falling from the ceiling turning my tub, sink and bathroom floor into a pebble-strewn dirty mess:



I guess I should just be thankful I was too lazy to clean the bathroom yesterday like I originally planned.