[Bad Word]

“I’ve always understood why [Landlady] left.” I muttered.

Sometimes DIY infrastructure fails but that’s not what’s discouraging. It’s the cascading failures that get under your skin. Where one relatively minor fault only points out another, which would have contained the problem if only it had worked right, which it didn’t because you’re an idiot. And between the two of them they turn a merely irritating problem into a disaster that just ruins your whole *&^% day.

Consider if you will:

I’m not a virgin when it comes to the possible pitfalls of free appliances. Or the possible effects of bouncing free appliances around on eroded desert paths for a few miles before installing them.

So…

…even though my second-hand washing machine no doubt worked perfectly when my neighbors hauled it out to their back porch, I was perfectly aware that it might not do so by the time I had dragged it to Ian’s place. I ran some small loads through it with trepidation and close supervision. It. Worked. Fine.

So this morning I ran what I hoped was going to be the new routine, which I had completely worked out in my head. Bring a hamper of dirty clothes to Ian’s place in the initial phase of Tobie’s morning walkie. Start a full load, resume walkie. Instead of going straight home, hang a right back to Ian’s place. Tether Tobie outside – he’s really not crazy about being left to his own devices inside the Cave – go all the way into the Cave and continue business.

I only made it about halfway when there was an intimation of disaster…

Oh, my. That’s not even supposed to be physically possible. The Cave has flooded before: I know how that works and it doesn’t make puddles in this particular room. Something completely unprecedented is happening. I whipped out my flashlight to see what it might be…

The water was coming from the air inlet! How in the name of eldritch Lovecraftian gods could it be coming from the air inlet???

I rushed back to the washing machine…which was still filling. Or rather, trying and failing to fill. And had been for like half an hour at that point. And it was dumping the water…

…into the floor drain, which was not draining into the septic system as expected but instead heading over to the living room to give me a nice surprise.

Pause to consider. The whole water system enters the cave at the utility closet, which also contains the inline heater and the water softener. It shares a wall with the shower, which definitely drains into the septic system. There’s a hole in the floor of the utility closet. Where does that hole go? I assumed (there’s that word) Two Years Ago when we installed the heater and the softener that that hole went to the septic system. No harm had ever before come of that assumption – because nothing had, up to that point, gone wrong enough to prove the assumption incorrect. But when I shoved the washing machine drain into the hole and let it run…

…water belched forth from the air inlet in the living room under the woodstove, because that hole in the utility closet floor didn’t go to the septic system at all.

[Bad Word]

Okay. I’ve lived here long enough that I can deal with cascading failures. I don’t exactly thrive on them, I don’t claim they can’t sometimes get under my skin. But I can compartmentalize the dismay and go straight to Step 1.

Step 1 was to deal with the flood. Fortunately Ian’s Cave contains a wet/dry vacuum. Unfortunately, I knew for a fact that it was at present at least partially full of stucco dust. So Step 1(a) was to drag it out to the cliff and empty the tub over the edge. Step 1(b): Bring it back inside, remove the attachment from the hose, shove the hose into the air inlet as far as it will go. Plug it in. Turn it on and see if it will suck water. Yes, it will: The level in the pipe immediately dropped.

OMG! Step 1(c)! Turn it off! It sucks up so much water so fast that water almost immediately starts spraying everything in the room from the exhaust!

Step 1(d): Laboriously drag the vacuum out of the cave and empty it down the slope. Bring it back in. Repeat steps (b) through (d), omitting as much as possible of (c), until the vacuum starts sucking air.

Deep breath. I couldn’t decide what Step 2 ought to be: I have a machine full of mostly-wet clothing that needs to be laundered at some point. Fortunately there is a Plan B for that. So let’s table that issue for the moment and decide that Step 2 is take Tobie home.

Now, Tobie has been a very good boy through all this. None of it is his fault, of course: He wouldn’t be born for more than ten years after we (and yes, it was WE: Ian may have decided that the utility closet needed an air inlet rather than a water drain but I was there and I didn’t see the problem either) laid the pipe and poured the floor. Ergo, taking this out on my dog would be a very dick move.

Unfortunately for Tobie, he figured this would be a perfect time to get the zoomies. And halfway home he decided that what this situation needed was to sneak behind me and body-slam me behind the knees.

I expressed my opinion of this in what I freely acknowledge was an undiplomatic and uncalled-for manner. Later I apologized and gave him a cookie, and he seems to have forgiven me.

And now, having gotten all that off my chest, I need to go back and hand-wash a load of laundry because it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the next day. And then I’ll see if I can figure out Step 3.