In Which Laurel Must Hire a Plumber

Pipe Home ownership -- it’s an integral part of the American dream. Your very own place, your very own yard, a place to call your own. There’s just one tiny little pesky part of that grand dream of home ownership no one ever tells you during the “sell” phase – home repair.

Before I owned my own home, I had to call someone about home fix-it related issues exactly twice in my life. Once, I dropped a diamond necklace down the sink and called the plumber whose coupon was on the front cover of the yellow pages. (There was a diamond involved. Do I really need to describe how desperate I was?)

A plumber arrived within an hour, and after a five-minute fix, I wrote him a check for $125.00. (So much for the coupon.) On the plus side, he at least taught me how to save my own jewelry from the ell in the pipe in the future. On the down side, I went from having an ordinary, expense-free morning to a $100.00+ one. I was learning that nothing about hiring a handyman is ever cheap – or easy.

The other time I needed a handyman, it also happened to be a plumber. I was renting the upstairs of a house in Georgetown with four other girl friends during our senior year of college. It was a Saturday, and there was a clog. Our landlord was out of town, so what would have been a relatively stress-free situation quickly went to DEFCON one. It was already a stretch with five girls sharing one bathroom. Remove the toilet from the equation, and you’ve got real trouble.

With one roommate out of town and two suddenly having “plans,” it was left to me and another roommate to figure out how to handle the problem. As per usual, I turned to the yellow pages. (Only, this time I actually opened the thing.) Being all of 20, I went with the first big ad that said “no problem to small” and “available all hours of the day or night.” References, credentials and estimates didn’t even cross my mind.

“Hello, I need to hire a plumber,” I said as soon as someone answered the phone. “My toilet is clogged, and I really need it fixed as soon as possible.”

“We’ll send someone out right away,” the man on the other end of the line said, and he proceeded to take down my address and phone number.

When I got off the phone, I was relieved and couldn’t believe how easily I had taken care of what I considered to be a very grown-up problem. Then, my roommate and I went to pacing and trying not to drink or think about running water while we watched for the plumber’s arrival outside of the window.

About 30 minutes later, a blue Dodge Mini-van parked across the street. It reminded me of the one my family owned circa 1985 through the early ‘90s. Only, this was 2000, and our family car had had all of its seats in the back.

At that moment, my stomach dropped. “I think that’s our plumber,” I said, my gut telling me that it had been way too premature to pat myself on the back for this one.

“No way,” my roommate said.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Surely …”

A man in jeans and a white undershirt climbed out of the driver’s seat and opened the back of the van. In almost clown-like fashion, four younger men rolled out of the back of the car while someone else exited via the front passenger side door.

“No way,” my roommate said.

The man from the driver’s side and the man from the passenger’s seat of the car crossed the street and rang our doorbell. Luckily, it seemed like the four men from the back of the van were only there to spectate and smoke cigarettes on the curb, so at least we didn’t have half a dozen men on their way in.

We greeted the two “plumbers” and took them to our bathroom. (I’m still doubtful about whether or not they were actual plumbers despite the fact that they had a plunger and snake with them.)

“This is a nice house,” one of them said.

“But you sure got a mess in here,” the other said, staring into our bathroom.

“Well, you know,” I said, “with all of our boyfriends over all the time, there’s no telling what can happen. If they weren’t at football practice right now, I’m sure one of them could have helped us out.”

(1) Of course this was all lies, 2) I know the Georgetown football team really wasn’t much of a threat, but 3) a lifetime of procedural dramas and time with my father will cause your brain to default into a mode in which you make any and all strangers think someone will always be looking for you should you disappear and that that person is very large with possible rage control issues.)

Twenty minutes later, they were done, and I handed them a check. (I had asked for the price while they were toiling away in the bathroom and wrote it quickly in the hopes that we could usher them from our house as quickly as possible once the work was complete.)

“A check?” the first plumber said. “Do you think there’s any way you could pay us in cash?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is all we have.”

“We’d be more than happy to drive you to the ATM,” the other plumber said.

Now, I recognize that bad things happen to good people all the time, no matter how careful you are. But, I also knew that I had no intention of going out of this world because I decided to crawl in the back of a burned out minivan with six strange, large men I had never seen before that day and my ATM card.

“I don’t have an ATM card,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Both men looked at my roommate.

“Me neither,” she said. Was it reasonable for two college-age women not to have ATM cards in the 21st century? No, but I didn’t really care.

We both just started walking towards the front door with the check in hand, and thankfully the plumbers followed. After they were out the door (that we quickly bolted), we watched the whole team file back into the van and head away.

I learned a little lesson about the Yellow Pages that day, and we’ve had trust issues ever since.

Now, as a home owner in the midst of a kitchen renovation, I have to call plumbers, electricians and general handymen all the time. Even when I only go with recommendations from friends, I dread the process of finding phone numbers, getting estimates and waiting to see how much I get to spend on whatever has gone wrong in my 1928-era bungalow that day.  Home repair = high stress, and that’s all there is to it.

In short, renters rejoice. Your landlord is probably crazy. (Generally, they all are, but I think that's what too much home repair does to people. It's like the chicken and the egg, and I have no idea if landlording or home repair comes first.) And I’m sure you have some neighbors with noise issues, but the odds of finding six men outside your door ready to take you to the nearest source of cash are probably much lower. You might even find the phone book helpful.

And at the end of the day, the person responsible for it all isn’t you, and in my book, that’s the best present of all.

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