If a bathtub is designed for Washing, How dirty can it be? --Episode 4 in slum living in Wayne Whitney's 16 Benson Street Apartment

Apartment Repair Fails: or My Idiot Landlord

Adventures in Slum Living

Episode Number Four: If a Bathtub is Designed for Washing, How dirty can it be?

As explained previously, I moved into a rundown apartment in July. Although the place looked like shit, I was in a great hurry to find a place, had little time, and the landlord, Wayne B. Whitney, and I had a verbal agreement where he would provide supplies and I would fix his 16 Benson Street, Albany NY apartment. 

Instead he rescinded on that agreement and then refused to make any repairs himself. Alas! Sad to see isn't it? 

This time we will start with the bathroom. Now, on one hand, it strikes me as a bit cruel to post these photos of Wayne Whitney's 16 Benson Street apartment in Albany, New York. On the other hand, as Wayne Whitney likes to brag to his friends about being a property owner, and assures me, "there is nothing wrong with the apartment" perhaps he thinks these pictures look good. I have no idea, actually, how he thinks. 

+++++

This is the shower head. As you can see it is held in place with electrical tape. OK, lots of people use electrical tape as a stop gap measure before moving on to a more permanent and better looking solution, Alas, it has been like this since before I moved in. Hmmmm?

More electrical tape, this time to hold the shower pipes and fixtures to the wall, Electrical tape? Surely one would think even Wayne would know that its' duct tape that's the handyman's friend. 

Starting at the top, more details of the shower and bathtub. 

Now here we have the space under the bathtub.  This area is so bad that Wayne Whitney actually noticed it was a problem. He even assured me several times and talked in detail about how he would fix it, because he knew that the dripping bathtub was damaging the floor and dripping wet floors would eventually damage the apartment below. 

Now his plan for taking care of it was a bit strange. It had something to do with putting a bowl of salt under the bathtub. I am not making this up. One of the neighbors had told him that salt absorbs water so if you put a bowl of salt under a leaking bathtub it would reduce the amount of water, "One of the neighbor's, an old landlord, told me this," he said. "It's an old wives' tale.

Apparently Wayne Whitney does not understand the idiom "old wives' tale." Hmmm? 

Perhaps the neighbor who told him did, because, I, for one, cannot imagine it to be true.

Apparently his idea on how to learn household repairs is to ask the neighbors. Hmmmmm? I wonder how that work out.

By the way, notice one important detail here. After all this talk, there is not even a bowl of salt under the bathtub. (Of course, that wouldn't make much difference because it's a stupid thing to do, but at least it would show an effort.)

The above shot gives a good view of how the bottom of the tub is rusting and the area under the table is not properly tiled. Apparently Wayne thinks that bathroom tiles are for cosmetic effect,  and does not realize they serve a purpose in waterproofing and reducing water damage to the wood floors underneath. Therefore he leaves the wettest, yet least visible area of the bathroom floor untiled.

And now we come to the drain. I asked him to put some liquid plumber down the drain He said he did. Obviously he didn't. As you can see the drain is plugged and the water sits there. 

See the little object on the right? It's a bottle cap floating on the water just to illustrate.

When I moved in Wayne Whitney had put some silicon gel around the leaking, plugged up bathtub drain and he described it as a temporary measure. This was in July. The silicon gel is still there, at least a little bit, honestly most of it has peeled away and floated off and is probably now part of the drain stoppage.

The water spout. 'Nuff said.

WAYNE B. WHITNEY HAVE YOU NEITHER ANY SENSE OF CLASS NOR CONSCIENCE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

The above shot is looking up at the bathtub spout from underneath.

And there we have it. The bathtub in Wayne B. Whitney's 16 Benson Street, Albany New York apartment.


Here's a random shot of the bathroom before I moved in.