Problem The First - The Bathroom.

This requires a bit of backstory. In mid-to-late 2008 I decided that I was going to rearrange my apartment here and make it more suitable for company. I started with my bedroom which was starting to annoy me. I started and finished it in a day. I even added a piece of furniture to it and the room ended up being more spacious than it had ever been. Okay, good.

Next up was the kitchen. The kitchen hadn't been used as an actual kitchen since the previous tenants were here, almost 20 years ago. I'd been using the room as storage space in my time here. I knew it was time for a change when I realized I was storing things in the oven (yes, the gas was off). I gutted the room, taking out the oven, sink, and even the counter that was there. After retiling the floor and wall, I moved some bookcases in and now it's a full-fledged comic-book-room that is storing a few thousand books. So that's two rooms done.

This room (computer/living room) was next but required the most planning because I wanted to get it just right. A few changes were made, but new furniture would need to be bought. I got a fancy corner desk from IKEA which fits perfectly where I wanted it to. The entertainment Center would be next, though I had no idea what to get. I figured I'd get something kind of strange looking because I seem to have a thing for offbeat looking furniture.

Oh...but not so fast!

I remember it was a Saturday in June, the second (and busiest) day of the comic convention here in Philadelphia. I took a shower and freshened up further and readied myself to leave. I went downstairs and noticed that the roof of the living room on the second floor had a leak. I was in a rush and my mom wanted to leave also (hey fuck you, she reads comics as well. Even ones that I don't). She put in a call to our neighbor and we left. We come back in the afternoon and my neighbor informs us that my tub/shower on the 3rd floor is basically disintegrating and needs to be replaced. Lovely.

The neighbor, who my mom has hired for this (he works on the cheap, which is good...sort of) tells us that in order to do the work the tiles on the walls need to go. Okay, fine. By the end of August, the tiles are gone. He finally begins in late October.

It's now the second month of 2010, a new year, and the work is still unfinished. The bathroom is entirely gutted. The tub/shower is gone, to be replaced by a standup shower, the sink and toilet are both gone as well. Unfortunately, the controls to turn the water off in the bathroom are located in a panel that can only be accessed via the comic-book-room. Oh, and access to the bathroom itself? You have to go through my bedroom to get to it. The new toilet, the new sink, the new shower, everything that's needed has already been bought and is ready to be installed and finished up. However, the neighbor is taking his good old time on it. He's much too busy A) getting shit-faced on the cheapest Whiskey he can find and B) doing jobs for people who won't pay him or will pay him in very tiny installments. Everything for the bathroom is sitting in my bedroom. On the floor, on the bed, everywhere. There's even stuff in the comic-book-room. So any time I get new books or new anything, it gets piled into this room to be put away at some point in the future. I'm pretty sure my bed has a layer of dust on it now as I haven't slept in it since October. Good thing I'm not dating anyone or anything like that, as my neighbor is inadvertently cock-blocking me.

Which probably brings us to Problem Numero Dos, doesn't it?