Day #30: The one with the money pit - Part 2

Since living in the new flat, we have really been pleasantly surprised with our washing machine. As the rest of the apartment crumbles around us, the washing machine has really stood strong and held her ground. We have to give her some credit. When we thought all hope was lost, she would pull through and do a tremendous job washing one pair of pants and two t-shirts!

It wasn't until Sunday, on the tube, that we started to second guess our bubbly friend. We were on our way to football in the park when Shayne smelled something somewhat sour. Getting a jizdenky whiff is nothing out of the ordinary; however, this whiff was vaguely familiar. It took her a minute to place it and then she realized that she recalled the smell from her run the previous day. Slowly, the dots started to connect in her mind. Horrified, she leaned over, discreetly smelled Jake's shirt and noticed it was him who smelled a little bit off. As the pieces began to fall into place, she was also forced to acknowledge that on her run, she was the source of the sour whiff. Our clothes were really smelly!

We Sherlock Holmes-ed it when we returned home later that day and were able to isolate the smell to a load (and by load we mean 4 items!) of darks Shayne had done a few days before. She chalked it up to a washing machine anomaly. These clothes officially qualified as true European Jizdanky, and were now due for another wash.

Sidenote: Up until this point, Shayne had not paid much attention to the bit of excess water that was forming every few days in the bottom of the washer. She would use a plastic cup to scoop it out into the sink and go about her day. Looking back - did she really not think that was weird?

Anyway, Tuesday night, we had gone to do a load of laundry and, when we opened the door, FILTHY water was just pouring into the kitchen. We shut the door quickly to trap the water inside and stood there with soaking wet socks. Shayne called Jake in to investigate the excess water situation. With our amazing sleuth we quickly realized that there was a soggy tortilla chip floating in our washing machine. Odd you say?!? Agreed. Turns out that our dirty dish water was conveniently emptying into the washing machine. Given the shorter amount of piping required, we can understand why the fantastic English plumbers would decide to route the dirty dish water this way. Much similar to the 1:7 ratio, it also appears that the plumbers like to use 1/7th of the amount of piping they need to do a proper job.

Needless to say, Trevor was called Wednesday morning (we've lost count of the amount of calls placed to Trevor and Co at this point). Here's the great part...Venice (Nice Landlord Lady, not the city) listens to the problem, and here are her three solutions: 1) Get a plumber to come out after the May Day bank holiday (note: May 2nd, or 13 days away); 2) She thinks outloud, "Well is the plumber really necessary? Aren't you just going to add soap to the dirty water anyway?!?" (Yes, she actually said that). In our minds we were thinking, 'Not really sure, some purple lilac soap is going to eliminate last night's left overs from emptying into our washing machine.'; and the grande finale 3) "Why don't you just wash the dishes in the bath tub?" Yep, the Money Pit ladies and gentlemen.

To summarize, as we write this Shayne is washing our dinner dishes in the bathroom sink. Delightful.

Lesson(s) Learned: 1) Don't be so quick to judge the Jizdankies, sometimes it might be you; 2) Believe it or not, washing your clothes in dirty dish water does not result in Bounty Freshness; 3) Bank holidays are pretty serious here.