It's a bit weird to invite them in the first place, given that they live next door, but having done so I don't see how you (ie one) could react negatively if they do. Not least because the "especially anything perishable" bit indicates you actively want them to eat stuff so it doesn't go bad. The toilet thing is not cool though.
It's a bit weird to invite them in the first place, given that they live next door,
It is? The cat is an indoor cat. The plants are indoors, too.
Oh, the toilet thing is fine. Really. Slightly gross to come home to, but I'm glad they were spending time in the house.
the water was turned off to the house.
I find that I must know why the water was off.
4: Yes. It's not like you were expecting the pipes to freeze.
Probably lit students doing what's known as a 'Raymond Carver'.
2: Invite them to eat food, I mean. It's one thing if you're asking friends from across town, but these guys have their own fridge a couple of yards away.
My father-in-law insists that we must turn off the water if we leave the house a couple of days or more. I think maybe he knew somebody who had a big problem with leaking pipes.
7: Because we really did have a bunch of vegetables, some tamales, fruit, etc, and I didn't want to throw it out, but I didn't want to come home to it, either.
I find that I must know why the water was off.
Just in case we had a hard freeze. Our pipes are all exposed under the house, so it's not enough to drip the pipes when it gets really cold - we have to drain them. Which involves taking an aircompressor to the faucets, because even with a bunch of new valves installed at all the apparent lowest points, we couldn't get all the water out last year otherwise.
10: You mean our daughter's toy, Tall Cup With Spout?
Gravity doesn't work right under your house?
13: remember, they live at the bottom of a river.
I suppose there must be isolated low points that don't drain down. You could just shake the house a bit.
Have you considered insulating your pipes?
A google image search for "sippy cup bong" is suprisingly unproductive. I blame SOPA.
Yeah, they're wrapped. There are still odd elbows, and places where the pipes get up against the floor joists, etc.
Really, this was a holy escalating arms race last winter. We tried everything.
What we've got right now is $300 of plywood, which we lean against the house to block the wind and trap the heat, as well. There haven't been any hard freezes so far this year, though.
I think they were even wrapped with something self-heating, for awhile last year.
At least when I was a kid, my dad would turn off the water to the house every time we went on a family vacation. Which was usually in the summer. I guess the idea was that a mysterious plumbing disaster couldn't happen then.
7: Because we really did have a bunch of vegetables, some tamales, fruit, etc, and I didn't want to throw it out, but I didn't want to come home to it, either.
Well, yeah, that's my point. Your note clearly indicated you wanted them to eat stuff. So why should Jammies be surprised they did?
Common courtesy, if they used your bong, would be to have left the bowl packed.
HP gets the tall cup with spout because mommy and daddy now have a big fun balloon.
Well, not totally unproductive, as it led me here.
But what really confuses me: they cooked food? Without water? Aside from all the possible ways water could be required when cooking, does this mean they left you with a pile of dirty dishes?
Also, Jammies worries about the water heater springing a leak and gushing for weeks. (Which did happen to us, over a weekend.) So he likes to turn off the water to the house for that reason, too.
I dog-sit for what used to be my next door neighbor, and he gets ALL the cable channels. He always offers food and drink, and he is pretty insistent about it. If I stay awhile I have a beer or two, but I wouldn't do that if the water was off and I couldn't use the toilet.
So why should Jammies be surprised they did?
He just would never have actually taken someone up on the offer, is all.
20: currently a painful memory, I assume.
20: Disasters do happen, even in the summer. Certainly if you are going to be out of town for a week or more, it seems like a reasonable precaution.
Which involves taking an aircompressor to the faucets...
urple, is it possible somebody left an air compressor hooked to your faucets and you never noticed?
But what really confuses me: they cooked food? Without water? Aside from all the possible ways water could be required when cooking, does this mean they left you with a pile of dirty dishes?
We're not totally sure. Everything was clean. Some pans were in different places. We did leave them with an excess of gallons of water, since the cat uses distilled water* and the plants needed water too.
*the cat gets UTIs from the local hard water.
My landlord seems to be avoiding my phone calls at the moment.
The worst story I have heard was a friend who's plastic toilet input pipe sprang a leak while he was on vacation, and the water flooded his upstairs and downstairs. After that I replace all my toilet input pipes with higher quality rubber/flexible metal pipes. It may have been overkill, but I did it anyway.
You have to get the flexible metal toilet input pipe. The other ones make your bathroom look like it's in an RV or something.
We did leave them with an excess of gallons of water
Should have included instructions on how to flush a toilet by pouring water in.
Also, Jammies worries about the water heater springing a leak...
A very reasonable fear. Our water heater sprang a leak despite having no visible sign of damage or any indication of a problem. It didn't do much damage because the heater is in a basement and the drain wasn't far away, but it was a great deal of water.
Should have included instructions on how to flush a toilet by pouring water in.
Well, the funny thing is that you get one flush for free. So either they messed up twice, or they didn't even try to flush. (I can't remember if the tank filled when we turned on the water to the house.)
16: Have you considered insulating your pipes?
Have you considered ... never mind just piling on. But my actual semi-constructive advice (and then I'll shut up), urple, is to at least get someone in to look at/fix if necessary the rumored sewer venting issue. You don't even need to tell them about the poltergeist.
I ended up ferrying water over to a house of a friend whose cat I was watching after I took a piss without realizing the water was turned off. I don't know what possessed me since they were the most amazingly fastidious people I know.
Just as long as you rinsed the sink well, it will be fine.
Or mashed it down the drain with your feet.
Or mashed it down the drain
The Most Painful Piss I Ever Took.
You've got to drink more fluids to avoid that kind of problem.
Hilarious. A friend here had a student cat-sit, and came home to find a very large piece of exercise equipment in the dining room, and a used condom on the window sill.
Oh, hey, thanks to the person here who told someone (knecht?) to replace a showerhead because it's easy and fun. You were so right, person, and now my showers are 12 billion times more pleasant!
47: This large piece of equipment -- did it in fact belong to the cat's owner, or did it mysteriously show up like the used condom?
A friend here had a student cat-sit, and came home to find a very large piece of exercise equipment in the dining room, and a used condom on the window sill.
The cat was said to be "tired, but happy".
49: Yeah, apparently he brought it over? But I'm trying to figure out how he got it there.
50: Hee. Gross.
My mom has a cabin in NH where they turn off the water in the winter. Used to go up sometimes anyway, and get buckets of water from the stream nearby so as to flush. That was before this summer (sorry of already told this story) when Chicken and I got up to find thr copper stolen. That included the 'out' pipes, so we couldn't flush without getting the waste into the basement. Had to go to the friendly local McDs to do business that trees did not accomodate.
I came home from a week away in the summer to an apartment that smelled faintly of dead body. Opening the freezer door changed that faintly to intensely, as a huge amount of liquid and squishy stuff poured out. Water can and sometimes should be off, electricity to cold-making gadgets not.
Water can and sometimes should be off, electricity to cold-making gadgets not.
Especially if you have a body in the freezer.
Most people have dead bodies in their freezer. Or at least various dead body parts.
Sewn together to form a continuous digestive system.
The memory is still very vivid. It was almost a half-century ago but one of the reasons for installing the DeathCam.
I can understand how some people might not recognize the smell of rotting meat but I don't see being able to ignore it for days as reports of finding the little old lady after complaints indicate is very possible. No ethnic cooking I know of smells like that.
59 last. Really ripe kimchi comes close.
I like the thought of the cat "using distilled water".
Meanwhile, landlord fun. So I don't rent any more. Whoo. Members of my family appear to consider this some kind of achievement with moral content, rather than a six-figure sum of menacing debt, but eh. Anyway, we closed all the accounts and paid the final bills. So, bit of a surprise when landlord phones to complain that "bills" are turning up (although we paid to redirect the post).
Investigation reveals that the power company and the water company want some money. After a while in callcentrespace, it turns out that not only do we not owe them any money, they owe us money.
Landlord just imagined they could make us pay power bills while they looked for another tenant, it seems.
62: The cats and I drink the cheap bottled stuff. The tap water here might be "safe" but it tastes greatly of chlorine and leaves orange rings when it evaporates.
I'm very comfortable with my house being quasi-public, and told many friends where the emergency key is. Only a couple of them have taken me up on my sincere offer to use the house if they're nearby and need anything, but I enjoy it when they do.
Now that my boyfriend lives with me and we got actually broken in to (sadly, without use of the emergency key, but by breaking the front door), I suppose I'll have to be a little more judicious. It is his space too and he might not be as chill about it.
I would totally eat the food even now, and would have cleaned out your pantry back in my 20s. Why offer if you don't mean it?
I, OTOH, am driven mad by how hard it is to get people to do that. My babysitters come over having already eaten. I'm a good cook! What's up with that!?
47 is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Holy shit.
Why offer if you don't mean it?
Who said I didn't mean it? See 9.
Why offer if you don't mean it?
I'll take that a step further and say that any time I've made that offer, it's because someone is doing me a big favor. So I feel a little bad when they don't take advantage.
But like Jammies, they never do.
What is the going rate for pet- and house-sitting these days? We will need someone for a few weeks later this year and I don't want to insult anyone, but it seems like the rate is probably lower for, say, somebody who lives with lots of roommates, or who would be bridging a renting gap.
What is the going rate for pet- and house-sitting these days?
If they kill more than one pet and two plants, then you can get mad at them. Otherwise, tough break.