Just call me Rosy the Riveter...

It has been just about a year since we've had a full functioning bathroom. The shower in the downstairs bathroom is unusable because the walls and floor are rotting because the tiles were not properly grouted and water leaked through them. Because our landlord has not fixed this problem, we have not been able to use the shower for fear of causing much more damage.

THEN, as if that were not enough, the tank on the upstairs toilet cracked and would not hold water. The landlord promised to fix it. He never came. I tried patching the crack but nothing would contain the water and recently I noticed that the crack had become a full on break. For months (and months) we've been flushing it by pouring buckets of water into the toilet. This means we don't flush it every time it gets used. About a month or so ago I got a toilet off of freecycle with hopes of either replacing the whole toilet or at least taking the tank off the old toilet and replacing it with the tank on the "new" toilet.

Today I got fed up and decided to give ADHD Boy aka Mr. Fix It aka Elijah the oppurtunity to try to undo the screws on the upstairs toilet. There was just no way he could do any more damage to that bathroom than was already done. The carpet (yes, I said carpet... who in their right mind puts CARPET in a BATHROOM???!!!???!!!) was rank and really needed to be ripped out.

So, a few minutes into his task Elijah comes and tells me that not only will the screws not budge, but the toilet keeps tipping. Not the tank, the bowl. Whuh???!!! I go upstairs to look and sure enough, THE TOILET IS NOT SEALED TO THE FLOOR!!!!!!!! Well, it was the whole unsealing and resealing the toilet that had made me decide not to switch out the entire toilets. If the stupid thing isn't sealed anyway why not just take it out.

So, I got as much remaining water out of the bowl of the toilet as I could, donned some rubber gloves, and I picked up that toilet and moved it out of the bathroom. All. By. My. Self. (I'll leave the dragging it down the stairs to my big manly Super Hubbie TYVM!!!)

This led me to start ripping up the carpet. It was moldy all the way through and the particle board underneath it was wet and gross too. I was able to rip all of both out except for what is under the (also rotting) sink cabinet. I don't have the ability to get that out.

So, here is my plan: Since the floor boards seem to be miraculously NOT rotted I'm going to wait until pay day and get some stuff to water seal the wood and then I am going to lay tile on the back half of the bathroom. Once that is done I am going to hire a friend's husband to come in and install the "new" toilet and take out the sink/cabinet. Once that is out I will rip out the carpet stuff under that, seal the wood on the other half of the floor and finish laying tile in the bathroom. In the mean time I will be on the hunt for a new bathroom cabinet/sink for free/cheap. If I can't find it I will insist that the landlord find one for me and I'll hire my husband's friend to install it for me. And THEN I will FINALLY have a full working bathroom.

If only I had the money and ability to fix the DOWNSTAIRS bathroom