It all started with “the Perfect In-Law Storm.” My wife’s family came to visit us a couple of weeks ago. I love my in-laws. Let there be no insinuation that I perceive their presence in our house as just the first in a series of debacles. We have a house that is just the right size for our needs, and fine for a temporary occupation of nine people. We were a cozy little family sprawled out on the bed, futon and floor. At least until the weather turned from comfortably autumnal back to a sweltering summer. We have no AC, so we had nine sweaty bodies in the house trying to stay cool by moving as little as possible.

Then my sister-in-law fell ill. Another sister-in-law offered to help us paint a few rooms in our house. Reason stated that trying to disassemble the kitchen, tape the edges, and paint it might cause some troubles with nine people in the house, but who am I to turn down free help? So what was once organized became disheveled as tarps were laid out and four sweaty people tried to cram themselves in our kitchen to turn it from heinous yellow to a nice avocado green.

And then the plumbing stopped working. We could get water, but the water wouldn’t go anywhere. Everything started backing-up and a foreboding gurgling noise started emanating from the first floor pipes. Next one of the cats decided to poop on the floor, which another sister-in-law stepped in. I suggested we use the litter boxes since the cats weren’t, but that idea didn’t fly. So all of us had to walk over to the public library to use the restroom and brush our teeth. The plumbing problem miraculously cleared itself after a couple of days.

After the family left (or, rather happily left our sewage house), things seemed to calm down a bit. Two rooms remained half-painted and I was in the throes of installing two exhibitions as work and working 13 hour days, so I was in no position to finish painting. So we tip-toed around to kitchen and dug around in boxes to find the utensils we needed.

Then the plumbing backed-up again and filled our tub with, um, nastiness. This time it did not clear itself and the nastiness just stewed and fermented in our tub. We called our home warranty company who spent the next three days trying to find a plumber for our area who would work with them, to no avail. So for three days we were using various public facilities to shower, brush our teeth, and use the restroom. Eventually, we took matters in our own hands and had a plumber come over.

I always thought of plumbing as a mildly dirty job of getting underneath kitchen sinks and fixing leaks behind tubs, but nothing too gross. This experience helped me appreciate why plumbers cost $170 for the first hour. After releasing the contents of our pipes on our basement floor (and some on the plumbers themselves), the plumber informed us that the blockage was out in our yard, so the home warranty company wouldn’t cover it. Plus we had numerous fractures in our main pipe and we would have to dig up our front yard and have it replaced. This will cost thousands of dollars.

At this point our basement floor was covered in sewage that had been steeping in the pipes for days like “Lipton Tea” as one of the plumbers put it. It was a ripe scent that permeated the entire house. I sent some copper sulphate and muriatic acid down the pipe to clear any additional blockages while Maria lit every scented candle at our disposal to dampen the smell of poo. I then proceeded to dump buckets of heavily chlorinated water on the basement floor and scrub away with a broom. My eyes and lungs were burning from the chlorine. Maria came downstairs to deliver another bucket of chlorine water and commented that our basement now smelled like a public pool.

I replied that when you mix poo, pee, and chlorine, it’s bound to smell like a public pool.