The Straight Dope

Go Back   Straight Dope Message Board > Main > The BBQ Pit

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 01-03-2004, 06:15 PM
Silver Serpentine Silver Serpentine is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
I pit thee, stupid people who bust water lines.

I have no water.

Nothing.

I haven't had water since about 3pm. It's now 7.

My hands are dirty (I CAN'T stand dirty hands, and it's making my head ache), I can't cook most of the food I have, nor can we flush the toilet.

Why is this, you may ask.

Some piece of shit "someone" with a backhoe (City workers? Random morons with a piece of machinery? I don't know!) was digging and busted the water main. When the Roomie left to get smokes at 5p, they were trying to scoop the water out of the hole they dug with said backhoe.

I saw some city worker trucks outside earlier. Allow me to go look outside to see if any of them are out this late, working to get the water back on for my ENTIRE apt complex.

Wow, they are. There is a chance that I may get my water back tonight.

If I don't wash my hands soon, I may go crazy. Little compulsive.

To the point of it all:

If you're a city worker, shouldn't you be intelligent enough to know where the WATER MAIN for an ENTIRE APARTMENT COMPLEX is, and then know NOT TO DIG THERE? Even if it wasn't a city worker, don't you need a permit?

Dipshits.
Reply With Quote
Advertisements  
  #2  
Old 01-03-2004, 06:58 PM
Silver Serpentine Silver Serpentine is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Well, we now have water. It's 8pm.

However, the water is dark yellowy brown and smells like poo juice. I will save a glass to show to The Cody. "Look! It's SO GROSS!"

I have me faucets running, hoping to purge the funk from my system. The air bubbles scare the cats, tho.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:00 PM
Flutterby Flutterby is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Penumbra
Posts: 6,432
This past summer we lost all water at our apartment building. It wasn't someone hitting a watermain though, it was someone setting fire to the electrical room and messing with the water tanks..

We woke up to no water and no explanation for almost 24 hours. I knew this because the water was off at around 2am when I got up and we didn't hear anything from management until 10pm. The note we got then told us we probably wouldn't have water for up to 5 days.. 5 days! Thank goodness they got it fixed within another 24 but it was driving us nuts all the same.

Hope your water gets going again soon.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:02 PM
Gadfly Gadfly is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Ugh.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:18 PM
Silver Serpentine Silver Serpentine is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Oh wow. 2 days without water, and I WOULD'VE gone crazy.

I had no idea who to call about my water being out (given that the complex folks aren't there on weekends).

But luckily, the folks who broke the pipes were the people who had to fix them.

`Course, I don't really want to drink the water yet.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:20 PM
Flutterby Flutterby is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Penumbra
Posts: 6,432
It was nuts. When the water finally came back on I was about to call my step-mom to go over there until the water got fixed!
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:41 PM
gluteus maximus gluteus maximus is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: NNW of Rashomon.
Posts: 925
How do you know the water line didn't break first, and they were digging to find the break so they could fix it?
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 01-03-2004, 07:48 PM
nemesis nemesis is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: May 2002
had similar problems some time ago and so know how you feel - and now for a little hijack

I once worked for one of the water co's back here in the UK. And i was one of the many minions who took calls from people who had lost their supply due to bursts. My fave customers were those who confused planned shutoffs with bursts that were not our fault.

nemesis: "hello, water co, nemesis speaking, how can i help you please"

Customer: "i have no water, what's happening!!"

nemesis: "Sorry to here that - if you give me your address, i will check it out for you"

... customer gives address...
…nemsis tipity taps info on keyboard….

nemesis: "i am sorry to say that some contractors working for the local authority have broken a mains pipe, about an hour ago, and we sent our guys there to resolve the issue shortly after"

"WHY DID YOU NOT WARN US ABOUT THIS THEN!!!!!!"

nemesis "......."

customer "well??!!!"

the temptation to waffle on about chrystal balls was strong - but i resisted. somehow.

Apologies for hijack…. But your tale of woe prompted a spontaneous bubbling up of a long forgotten anecdote and I could not resist.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 01-03-2004, 10:11 PM
Typo Negative Typo Negative is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
"Poo juice'???



Now there was an image I didn't need.





God, that's gonna be in my head for days........
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 01-03-2004, 10:40 PM
laigle laigle is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Man, you think you've got it bad, one time my parents had some halfwit dump excess concrete into the sewer outside their house and clog the outlet of their septic line. And of course with the nature of the system, you don't find out about this until several hours later you flush the toilet and pretty much the entire house backs up at once. Let's just say that Clorox did well on that incident and leave it at that.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 01-04-2004, 12:42 AM
Doomtrain Doomtrain is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
God, this happened to us once. We wound up buying bottled water to flush the toilet and had just started to make plans to go to a hotel when the water came back on.

How hard is it to not hit a big pipe full of water?
__________________
"Sir, we'd like permission to search your pie."--Captain Stottlemeyer, Monk
Playing City of Heroes? Find the Dopers you know and love here. In one of life's great ironies, we play on Virtue.
GMRyujin is now known as Doomtrain. Now with 30% more doom. Doom! DOOM!
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 01-04-2004, 05:30 AM
CanvasShoes CanvasShoes is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: South of Emerald City
Posts: 8,671
Hmm, my mom used to work for the water utility here in Anch. They would get customers who would call and (swear to god), ask if something was wrong with the hot water down at the city, because they didn't have any.

They'd also call in the middle of winter and ask why their water was off.

Water utility people: well, it's below freezing, do you have heat tape on your lines?

Customer: heat what?

It's not generally the utilities that hit lines, it's usually construction companies or homeowners that didn't get a "dig permit' and "locate" before digging, that do it.

At least in my neck of the woods.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:13 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2013, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

Send questions for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com

Send comments about this website to: webmaster@straightdope.com

Terms of Use / Privacy Policy

Advertise on the Straight Dope!
(Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.)

Publishers - interested in subscribing to the Straight Dope?
Write to: sdsubscriptions@chicagoreader.com.

Copyright © 2013 Sun-Times Media, LLC.