Another day of creative bathrooming
We moved into a cute craftsman-style bungalow in the North Park district of San Diego around the first of December. It’s a great house, with a secluded back “yard” (almost entirely patioed and surrounded by palm trees and other tropical vegetation), a hot tub on the back deck, a big kitchen, a fireplace, very quiet neighbors and, best of all, really caring landlords. This was, after all, their house for eight years; they only moved because they needed another bedroom for their two kids. However, there was one not great room in the house, and that was the bathroom. All the parts worked fine, but it needed work esthetically. Being fantastic landlords, they had already scheduled a complete re-tiling of the room. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for after we moved in.
On Tuesday morning last, the house was invaded by a California “dude” (complete with pony tail and soul patch) and his workers from Tijuana. The dude gave them their marching orders (in Californian, with a liberal sprinkling of “like y’know”) and left, and the demo began.
They stripped the tub surround down to the studs, ripped the floor off and, while they were at it, took out the fireplace hearth for replacement too. I sat in my office, making calls and sending emails, to the strains of Mexican radio, Mexican-Spanish discussions on how to attack the job (and other things), and sledgehammers.
This has been my first experience with probably illegal workers or, at the very least, Mexican laborers. I’ve had a huge dose of Liberal guilt because these guys are incredibly polite to me, work hard and well, clean up after themselves, and do it all after making the boarder crossing every morning which takes at least an hour, plus commute–but they are probably not getting paid half of what they were worth.
Anyway, they’ve been here every day since then (except the weekend, of course) and today, eight days after starting the project, they will finish the job…theoretically, of course. That would be great because it’s been a bit inconvenient. Not only have we had to find alternative bathing places (like the in-laws’ house 20 miles away, or the sink in-between), it’s also changed my daily activities.
Since I work from home and the house has only the one bathroom, having workers in it means that I’ve had to find other facilities to use throughout the day and/or have had to time my bathroom activities around their work. Thus, a typical day for me has been: get up, drink morning coffee (necessity) then go as often as possible before the workers arrive in the morning; then either wait until they leave for lunch around 12:30 or, if waiting isn’t possible, go shopping at the Target or Whole Foods and use their bathrooms (both of which have fine, clean facilities); then, after their lunch, wait until they leave for the day (usually they have to stop by 3:30 or 4 because they can’t do anything more while the brown coat sets or the tile sets or whatever) and then be free to go at will.
It wasn’t really possible for me to just ask them to step out as they had to take the door off to do the work and, well, that just makes it way too uncomfortable to go, doncha know. Luckily, long car trips with a father who used to never stop for bathroom breaks (hardly) means that I’ve been perfectly trained for this sort of situation. Still, planning your day around bathroom behavior is just not the way to live for any length of time.
This was all fine, though, until yesterday when they pulled the toilet. The idea was that they’d have it out for the day, then back in and usable for the evening. Unfortunately, the complex tiling around the converted clawfoot tub delayed the floor and the main tiler was out (with the flu, I think, from the way he sounded the day before), so, by the end of the day, it was clear that we wouldn’t have a toilet for the night. Luckily, the in-laws are lovely people so off I went to meet my husband there to stay the night.
The problem with that, though, is that the in-laws live in Rancho Peñasquitos, which is about 20 miles north off the 15 and, unfortunately, the 15 has the worst traffic on it every rushhour. So, I had to fight the commuters to get up there last night and this morning I had to be back at the house by 7am for work (and the workers). At least this morning, it being the very early morning commute, the traffic wasn’t horrible—just heavy. I have no idea how people do that every day.
Anyway, just to make things even more interesting, my husband greeted me in the morning with the two words you never want to hear, “I’m sick.” The poor guy appears to have the flu (which is hitting here pretty hard)—fever just over 100 and all the usual symptoms. So here I am back at the house, ostensibly working, while he lies sick up at his parents’. He can’t come home because we still have no toilet hooked up and all the pounding and tile cutting wouldn’t help his headache, I’m sure.
So, keep your fingers crossed that the workers really will finish today, get the toilet put back in, and that we’ll have a bathroom to use before the day is over. In the meanwhile, I think I need to go buy that fireplace screen I saw at Target…now.