Something to teach your children

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-1999
Something to teach your children
5
Wed, 02-11-2009 - 9:14pm

This doesn't have to do with my debt but I felt like venting somewhere.

I rent a room in a townhouse and share a really nice place with a couple of other adult women. Works okay.

This morning at 7:30ish just as I was about to make breakfast my roommate came downstairs and asked if I had a plunger. Nope. Last night the upstairs toilet wasn't working properly and this morning she flushed it anyway. Why, I don't know.

I said "you've shut the toilet off, right?" and she said no, she didn't know how. She's an intelligent 40-something woman who did not know how to shut the water intake off that goes into the toilet. And she didn't know if you take the lid and lift the arm on the ball up that also stops the water flow.

She said she'd mopped the water up with towels, that should be fine, right, and she went upstairs. A couple minutes later I noticed the water POURING out of the fan hood over the kithen stove, all over the top back and top of the stove, down the wall behind the stove, and inside the cupboard over the stove running around the exhaust pipe for the fan...about 45 minutes later it was obvious that the water has travelled all through the ceiling because there were big damp patches in the plaster.

The thing I never thought to do was flip off the breakers for the kitchen to avoid any kind of fire.

Anyway, it's a very expensive "accident" and I just felt like grumbling somewhere because the entire place is now full of industrial fans and dehumidifiers that are bigger than the kitchen stove. And I just wanted to go to sleep tonight, grrr...So, if you don't know how to shut the water intake to a toilet off, do yourselves a favour and learn, and show your kids too. Seriously, nobody had ever shown her.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2007
Wed, 02-11-2009 - 11:36pm

I totally agree with you. Even when I was raising my son there were parents that all they seemed to be doing is driving their kids from one place to another One school event to another one practice to another. I think there were some parent that didn't spend more then 2 minutes with their kids a day. All parents should really sit down sometime and teach

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2007
Thu, 02-12-2009 - 7:25am

I am so sorry you had to go through this. It just sounds terrible!

I will check with my two to see if they know how to do this. They know how to plunge a toilet, but if there's a bigger problem, I'm not so sure. Good reminder.

Dee









Avatar for mahopac
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-1997
Thu, 02-12-2009 - 11:13am

My goodness, this brought back memories!

When I was in my 20s, I had a roommate who was completely helpless about everything. She always lived in dorms in college and with her parents when we were in grad school, so this was her first apartment.

One morning I woke up feeling the air was "different." I opened the door to my room and the apartment was filled with steam. The hot water tap in the shower had "stripped" and she couldn't turn it off, so she had just left it running for half an hour until I woke up to deal with it! I turned off the valve under the sink, and that did it. And of course her job was much more important than mine, so guess who got to stay home and wait for the repair people to show up?

I've gotten DH to show *me* various things to do with the plumbing, but I'll bet our teenagers are clueless. Thanks for the reminder to show them, too.

Kelly

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2003
Thu, 02-12-2009 - 11:21am
When DH and I moved to a new townhouse with our kids almost three years ago, he had the task of hooking up the washer and dryer. Our landlord didn't show us how to turn off the water and we didn't think to ask.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2008
Thu, 02-12-2009 - 11:23am

Oh my that sounds horrible?