Apartment Matters

This week I have been focusing a little more on my apartment than normal.  I washed the heavy wool blanket I've had on my bed all winter and put it away; it's finally turned into summer complete with humidity. Last weekend I also inherited some storage containers and goodies from my friend and fellow volunteer, Megan, so I have been doing some organizing and incorporating these hand-me-downs into my apartment.  Megan is finished her third year in the country and heading back to the States next week so I have been trying to spend some quality time with her before she leaves.  However, I have also been absorbed in some of the more tedious and annoying bit of my Romanian apartment.

It started on Tuesday morning.  In the morning I stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee I hadn't put on my glasses or put in my contacts so the world was still blurry, but fine for coffee making.  As I walked towards the stove I saw a dark spot on the floor.  I vaguely wondered what I had dropped there yesterday.  In order to clearly see it I need to lean down and be about a foot away from it.  When my eyes were finally close to see the object in clear focus I discovered it was a giant cockroach, legs still wiggling in the air.  After disposing of it, I decided to forgo the coffee because I could bear the though of what else was hiding in my kitchen.  I went to school to teach a class and then came home the next hour to check with my landlord about what to the best thing to buy was.  I actually knew the Romanian word for cockroach because my old site-mate Vicki had problems with them in her apartment, as well.  My landlord ended up giving me a bottle of spray proclaiming in a "souvenir."  I then sprayed down the kitchen (and the bathroom for good measure) before heading back to school to teach my next class.  I can happily I haven't seen one since, but I am keeping the bottle of spray at the ready.

This morning I discovered a leak in a pipe in my bathroom that is steadily dripping on my floor.  I now have a bucket under it and this afternoon I will have to look up the verb "to leak" and the word "pipe" in Romanian before going to my landlord to explain this new issue.

UPDATE:
I went to my landlord and brought him to my apartment to show him the issue (he lives across the hall).  In the process of checking out the problem he accidentally disconnected the pipe that was dripping, it turns out this was the water supply line to the toilet. 

The result was getting of us both soaking wet and spraying water everywhere.  He finally managed to get the water shut off, but now I will not have any water in my apartment until tomorrow afternoon when he can come replace a part.  Luckily I have a little water stored up and am relatively clean.