stupid reno troubles just won't give me a break
had a very eventful day. first, hours before my shift was due to start, i decided to repot my monstera after some digging around the night before uncovered the remnants of an old stem that had turned entirely black and mushy, suggesting root rot. decided to do this in the common toilet (instead of the wet kitchen area), as it has the open space and a bigger drainage pipe to properly drain off the leftover bits of soil when i'm done.
in the midst of unpotting the monstera, i poured a small amount of water in a basin into the common toilet bowl. the water was maybe about just 1 litre, and included a very small amount of sparse bits of soil, not even half a handful. and then i flushed the toilet... and the water came gushing out from the SIDES of the toilet bowl! with a stale sewage smell.
i was mildly horrified but not initially disgusted yet, as that toilet is very seldom used, so i was fairly confident that it was not pee or poo water that was flowing out from the sides of the bowl. so i used the bidet spray to try to wash the water down the bathroom floor trap. to my shock, dirty sewage water started bubbling up from the floor trap and flooded the rest of the bathroom with the brownish water, some floating bits of ireallydunwannaknowwhat, and a stench.
i had to abort my repotting mission, dump poor monstera in a wet basin, and rush to call the ID and then take a shower (in the other toilet) cos i was so grossed out by the incident. the ID('s boss) promised to send their plumber down asap (this was like 2pm), and until now he tells me that the plumber has not replied him but he will "continue chasing". frankly i could have just called the town council or some other plumber myself... but wondering if i can claim the money back from the ID firm after that... after all it's two issues - (1) probably poor installation of toilet bowl and (2) choked drainage pipe probably cos their workers just dumped their reno debris and/or molten concrete down the bathroom floor trap.
after repeated attempts over the last 10h, i've discovered that the water does slowly drain down, but also quickly floods the toilet again whenever i switch on the tap for like half a minute. and it's the same dirty water and same dirty bits that float up each time. also, now whenever i flush the toilet, half the flush water (and some toilet bowl water!) flows out from its sides behind the bowl. i know that cos i threw a few grains of soil into the bowl and they came out from the sides. imagine it's poop and pee. wonderful.
so now my poor monstera is still sitting on its roots entangled in wet coconut fibre, looking quite the mess cos i haven't had the chance (nor space) to examine the root rot properly and to cut or wash it off. reluctant to use master bathroom cos afraid of the same thing happening, and besides the shower space is smaller.
and i've just been assigned another epic 2,000-word piece plus graphic to be completed in two days... how they expect science/medical/public health experts to all reply me within the night and for me to put it all together into coherent text and visual in this short amount of time, really beats me. my peers get 3-4 days off one shot to write a 900-word story with no need for data or graphic. some others' entire job roles seem to require them to do nothing else but produce approximately one article every week or even fortnight; i wish that were my job, how much free time i would have then! i tried to bargain for three days off ops to work on this, but was told to use my two official days off this week to do it instead. sure, i can claim back, but this basically means potentially working seven days straight, unless of course i pull a few all-nighters again. gah.