Handy Man Services

That's what the ad on the table at the restaurant last night read, at any rate.  If you need a handyman, however, you're out of luck.  Or, I might fix it for you.

The toilet in the master bath of my condo sounded as if it were constantly trickling water into the commode.  My mom had a handy pellet that I put into the tank and waited to see if blue water ran into the bowl.  (I presume you could do the same with a bit of food coloring.)  Sure enough, there was a leak.

I opened the tank and saw a bunch of silt left from someone's plumbing misadventure a few months ago.  I stirred it up and swabbed it from around the flapper then flushed.  From the afternoon through until this morning, the water leak diminished after each flush, until it stopped (or at least wasn't audible any more).

Then someone had another plumbing misadventure today.  I got back from lunch, flushed the toilet, and the tank didn't refill.  (Worse yet, I couldn't wash my hands.)  Hey, where did the water go?  None of my neighbors was home, so maybe the city crew who has torn up the street and been installing new water and sewer pipes (for nearly five months so far) shut it off (without warning, naturally).

The water has since been turned back on (I had used hand sanitizer before, but I feel much better having been able to wash my hands), and the trickling has returned.  I'll just shut the water off at the wall and see what I can do when I visit again.

Honestly, I had fixed it, until someone else broke it again.