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My shower is possessed. long stupid vent.
So if you've been around for a while, you know that my master shower is the bane of my existance. There is a very minor (as in, we never even hear it) but persistant drip from the shower head, which means that the shower floor never completely dries out. This makes the mildew very happy. Couple this with the fact that I refuse to scrub my shower more than weekly, and you get mildew stains that look AWFUL and are impervious to every cleaner (straight bleach, paste made out of ajax, commercial grade grout cleaner...). I think it was about 2 years ago that I decided to be Mrs. Fix-It and re-grout my shower. It was a horrendous experience with noxious chemicals, because nothing in this house was done the normal way. The seams were some kind of caulk that needed to be dissolved with a day-glo green paste that I swear has left me with fewer brain cells to this day. All that said, though, when I was done (about 2 weeks later, no joke), the shower looked AWESOME.
For 2 weeks.
Flash forward to a couple weekends ago, when for whatever reason I was noticing how well toilet cleaner sticks to the side of the bowl. I decided to squirt a bit in my shower and let it sit for 15min.. and HOLY MOTHER, it worked.
So today I went and bought a bunch of toilet cleaner, and I looked up how to fix the stupid leak in the faucet. I sh!t you not, the repair guide said "Time: Instant!" ... ... Really? I don't think so. Four hours later, I managed to break the faucet cartridge after trips to lowes and home depot where the most helpful response I got was "I've never heard of that. I don't know what to tell you." I managed to rig it back together temporarily, but it's not really correct and I'm terrified it's going to explode and sink my house (to the point that I think I might actually turn the water off when I leave the house in the morning so I don't spend the day imagining Clancy trying to use the popcorn bowl as a canoe). It will have to do until Saturday until I can try to drill a hole into the broken/lodged piece in a desperate attempt to yank the piece out.
Oh, and part of my annoyance with this stupid shower is how gorgeously pristine it was when we moved in. All I could think was that for 10 years, they managed to keep it GORGEOUS, and I manage to ruin it in no time flat. Weeeeeeeeeeeell... thanks to disassembling the faucet, I now know that the shower was re-done at LEAST twice. How do I know this? Oh that's easy.... because there is a wall... inside the wall... inside the wall. So there are 3 layers of drywall/tile -- drywall/tile -- drywall-tile. WTF?!?
I seriously hate this shower. I can't wait to have this leak fixed so I can clean the darn thing and maybe soothe the demons. Or maybe I would have to rip out the first 2 showers and exorcise the first shower before I can move on. Maybe MY shower is kind of like building a house on sacred native american burial grounds a la poltergeist.
Do Native Americans ever bury their elders in shower stalls?
Okay, I'm going to bed.
Re: My shower is possessed. long stupid vent.
So, did you turn the water off this morning? I probably would have
Part of me says rip the showers out and figure out WTH is going on. Then the other part of me says fix it in its current state, if you can.
Based on your story, yes, I think so.
That really sucks. I'd be frustrated & annoyed & all sorts of pissed.
ETA: Do you still have the cherub babies? Maybe they're possessing the whole bathroom....
Yep, I'm turning the water off as I walk out. There's no harm in doing it especially if I don't drain the pipes, and it will keep me from being neurotic all day. lol
LMAO, CD! Yes, sadly we do still have cherub babies. I don't know why I hadn't considered this before. It explains everything.
Pants -- does your DH do serious plumbing (like, including soldering a new faucet valve in place)? If I can't get the broken piece out of the middle of the faucet valve, we will have to replace the whole thing. It's actually (SURPRISE!) done incorrectly right now, with threaded PVC connected to the brass (copper?), but I feel like it should really be soldered in, and that's not something I'm willing to mess with.
WTF?! Imagine how much larger your shower used to be! lol Seriously, who fixes a shower but just covering up the problem? This whole post is hilarious, but I'm impressed by your handiness! Good luck.
I know. It's really bizarre. The home depot guy said he had heard of it before, but I can't even find anything on the internet about it. And the internets know everything.
Part of me wonders if there is moisture/mildew stuck in the layers of shower. Imagining the amount of ick that could be down there makes me gag. What sucks is that I was hoping to do my own demo when we re-do the bathroom early next year, but I was only planning on having to demo some tile, not 2 walls and 3 layers of tile. I also don't know what kind of condition the walls/ceiling above the tile are in after being covered for who knows how long... I know home repair always ends up being more complicated than initially intended, but as Gob would say.. COME ON!
You think? In my mind it would exacerbate the issue. I'm imagining crud growing all over the backs of each new wall and up through the grout. I don't know enough about how any of this works, though. Clearly I'm going to have to get a professional to take a look before I demo anything if I decide I still want to do that part myself.
Great idea to seek a professional before doing anything.
To answer your question, it depends. If it was dried out and no more moisture gets in there, the new drywall/tile was also put in properly, it's all good.
Jhaps, I'm right there with you in thinking that there is some evil crud in between the layers and it makes my face look like this:
How is it that my BABY is going to be 3?
BFP-2/25/11; 8 Wk U/S-3/25/11-No HB, measured 6.5 wks; D&C