The Story of Broken Toilet

Posted at:

Tuesday, March 30, 2021 8:00 am

Category:

• Life

Tags:

• Trouble-shooting

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Premise

In the apartment I live in, bathroom, toilet, and sink are all in one place.¹

The Sequence Of Events

Day 0: Occurrence of the incident

While I was taking a shower on Sunday night, the sink fell and hit the toilet bowl underneath. The front left side of the toilet bowl was gouged wide open, and it was almost half destroyed. Fortunately, the fragmented area was above the surface of the water and the lower half of the bowl was intact, so the bowl was still functioning as a urinal. In addition, the management company was out of business hours, so I did nothing that day and went to bed.

Day 1: Dealing with the incident

I decided to take a day off from work because I couldn’t live like this and I had to take care of this case first priority.

First of all, I informed my workplace that I would be taking a day off in the morning, secondly, I reported to the apartment management company as soon as they opened, and then I communicated with the contractor who was guided by the management company.

I found out below.

• I don’t have to pay for the repair.
• The replacement will take about 10 days for the following reasons
  • Replacement parts for the unit type are difficult to procure.
  • It’s March, the moving season in Japan, so the contractors are busy.

I had no choice but to go to the nearest supermarket to buy a disaster toilet (and rent a toilet, by the way), taking it positively as a practice for a disaster.

I found a toilet bag to use to put over the toilet seat, so I bought it.²

Day 10: Repair date confirmed

Day 13

I had returned the key to the spare room at the start of the replacement, so I was in danger of not being able to use the bathroom during that time.

What I learned

Even bathroom fittings could rust

I think that there is no such thing as rusty metal in a bathroom, but that was not the case. This time, even though I was relatively unharmed, if I had been using the bathroom, I could have been hit and broken. So I wonder I should have found it rusted and ordered to replace.

The management company is dependable

I had expected that we would not have to pay for the repairs, but it was completely unexpected and really helpful that they lent us a toilet in a vacant room.

Toilet situation in disaster

As I live in Japan, a country with a history of disasters, I should have always had a disaster toilet on hand. In this respect, this was a good experience for me as a little disaster rehearsal.