I'm profounded - I mean confounded - words matter.

I received a lesson in the importance of precision in language today.

Back in May, during a period of very wet weather I told my real estate agent that I could hear dripping in the ceiling. There was no reaction. Three days later I had water running down one of the walls in my bedroom. The light fitting was sparking as the electricity met the water that was running through there.

A (very handsome) electrician came and dealt with the electricity - in the ceiling - and left a gaping hole in my heart ceiling. Since then I've had no light in the bedroom and a gaping hole in the ceiling. I have taken to wearing a miner's lamp when I'm selecting my wardrobe for the day.

This happened seven months ago.

People sprang into action last December and decided that the week before Christmas was a convenient time to pack and remove the contents of the apartment, remove the ceiling, replace the ceiling, paint the bedroom and restore the contents. I had other plans thinking that my recent five week absence would provide the perfect opportunity.

Things don't always turn out the way we hope. I won't bore you with the details, but I arrived home to be confronted with packed boxes stacked in the lounge room, bedroom and the entry to the bathroom. And I brought suitcases which also needed to be unpacked. It was 42 degrees Celsius and I had to start work the following morning.

You can imagine the conversations I've been having. I'm writing everything down so they can feature in the absurdist script I'll produce one day. One of them involved the agent advising me to "just follow your normal routine". What am I? A rat in a box maze? She clearly thinks I'm insane. Or some kind of contemporary artist making a statement about some aspect of society as I turn my place into a piece of performance art. Shame I can't sell tickets. There's nowhere for the patrons to stand. I've rigged up a periscope so I can watch television. That's the only activity I can reasonably accomplish - unless I consider moving boxes around to be a leisure activity.

Anyway, the precision of language...imagine my initial surprise when the agent shared an email telling me that she had advised the insurance person and the owner that the flat is "inhabitable". After some thought, I decided she was right, but there was something off about the tone of the email.

Today I received another email telling me again that she'd told the insurance guy that the place is "inhabitable" but also that he shouldn't take her word for it and would need to see for himself.  Again, I had a nagging worry that she actually was using the wrong word.

I had to find out, but was unsure how to ask without causing offence.  I settled on asking if she meant "inhabitable" as in I can live there or "uninhabitable" as in I can't live there.

Her single-word response came: uninhabitable.

I imagined the insurance agent being moved to even higher levels of frantic inaction with the vehement statements that the place is inhabitable! Any wonder nothing much has happened in seven months.

Considered with the correct understanding, the email from the agent became even more ridiculous as it finished by stating "the place is [un]inhabitable and the insurance agent is aware of that so just wait and see what happens"!

Lucky the roof wasn't blown off! Imagine what "urgently waiting" feels like when you've got bigger problems than not being able to coordinate your outfit or needing to use a torch when you make your way to the bed. Add some boxes into the pathway and you've got added excitement at bed time.

My response in this situation is to initially get angry, then I go floppy and then I start looking for comedy to exploit. I can't even drink as an activity because I've given up alcohol for February as part of Feb Fast.*

Oh and I'm also taking legal advice.

* See how hard it is! I'd love you to sponsor me and support programs for young people who suffer from addictions

Man needed! The day I couldn't shut the door.

Yesterday was Melbourne's hottest day since March; around 36 degrees (Celsius). I had sealed my apartment shut when I left in the morning, closing windows, drawing blinds and closing internal doors. It worked. When I walked in the front door it felt several degrees cooler inside than it was outside.

I was doing the customary after work potter. There was mail to read, dinner to plan, washing to bring in. I'd had my sheets on the line and they were dried as stiffly as if they had been meticulously starched. I turned the radio on and heard the presenter ask the audience if the cool change had reached us yet. 

I looked out the window. It "looked" cooler. I opened a door and could feel the temperature had dropped significantly. This was my cue to open everything up again. It was reported on the news later that the temperature had dropped 13 degrees in less than forty minutes! The bricks were holding the heat, but the cool breeze was bliss.

The door from my lounge room to my balcony kept slamming shut as the wind forced it shut. I had some blocks of wood lying around and used one of them to chock the door open. Problem solved.

At about 10pm I decided it was time to go to bed and went to remove the block of wood and lock the door for the night. Neither the block of wood, nor the door would budge. I pulled. I kicked. I shook. I tried to lift. Nothing. My burly Irish neighbour was out on his balcony, smoking, and he asked if I needed help. Very kind of him, but I had no memory of his name. I could tell you the names of his last three predecessors, but his name escaped me. I decided to buy some time and said that I just wanted to get my hammer and see if hitting it (the block of wood, not the door) really hard would work. I found my hammer right away, so there wasn't much time to recall my neighbour's name. 

Out to the balcony I went, armed with my pink-handled hammer. I hit the block of wood. I may as well have whipped it with a piece of dental floss. My trusty neighbour was ready to come and help. He'd even put on a shirt. I succumbed. I'm quite happy to ask for the help I need, but I need to first establish that the help is actually needed. As we met at out front doors, I confessed I had forgotten his name.

"It's Allan!" he replied very cheerfully.

I handed him the hammer. He looked at its pink-handled girlishness with disdain. He hit the block of wood with it. I felt a bit better because the dental floss analogy was still relevant. He returned to his apartment to retrieve a more manly hammer. I was relieved that it wasn't a sledge hammer as I noticed that the door was now at quite an unnatural angle.  

Allan started to really hit that block of wood. I silently apologised to the entire western suburbs for the noise. At one point, I even saw sparks as there was movement in that block of wood. Two more whacks with gusto and the wood split in two, but the bulk of it was still stubbornly wedged and the angle of the door was terrifying. Just as I started to plan the conversation with the real estate agent, the wood moved and the door moved and I was moved! 

I thanked Allan as he showed me the hammer, proud that he'd been able to assist a damsel in distress.

"Next time, use a smaller piece of wood," he said as he left.

Tonight the door is tied open with kitchen twine.

What's in your toolkit? Do you know your neighbour's name/s? What would have happened if the door couldn't be closed securely? (eek!)

Spectacular trip and I'm off to hospital

Regular interaction with the health system is a feature of my working life, but usually I'm a simulated patient, rather than a real one.  Today I experienced the emergency department of one of Melbourne's main hospitals from the perspective of a real patient.

Following my usual routine, I had enjoyed the walk from Flinders Street station to the office South Melbourne.  There's something refreshing about a brisk walk in the cold air.  I arrived at the office just after 9am and entered the foyer.  I took one step, felt my left ankle slip, I corrected and over-balanced the other way, landing on my right knee as I went for a spectacular slide on the ground.  I lay on my face for a moment (elegant!), gathered myself together and sat up.  Several people walked past and then a woman stopped to help me up and ask if I was okay.  It was then a few steps into the office.  I sat in reception, burst into tears and announced that I had just had a fall.  

An icepack was brought immediately and a team of people sprang into action.  I had been able to walk, but bending the knee was causing a nasty twinge at the back/side.  I peeled back my leggings and discovered a nasty bruise and some swelling.  We quickly decided that I should head to an emergency department for xrays and assessment.

I arrived with a work colleague at 10:10am and could immediately see that it was busy.  My colleague joined the queue for me while I sat and waited for the three people ahead of her to be seen by the triage nurse.  She was lovely but had an unusual definition of pace and urgency.  I was thankful that I had someone with me and that I wasn't really, really sick or injured.  Several people in the queue looked terrible and there was no one to go to for help except the slow moving triage nurse.  

After about 30 minutes I made the front of the queue.  I gave my name, date of birth, address and gave a description of what had happened and a rating for the pain.  I was directed to take a seat and wait to be called by the administration clerk.  After a further fifteen minutes, I was seated in front of the administration clerk and asked exactly the same questions again as well as details of my Medicare card and employer.  These two people were sitting a metre from each other and using computers, so it seems incredible that my information hadn't been passed on.  Several times when I was trying to respond to questions, the administration clerk turned to talk to other people or answer the phone.  

Soon a very friendly physiotherapist came to see me.  She did a quick examination and then took me for an xray which was done quickly and I was back on a bed.  It was good news: nothing broken or torn, but some local bruising, likely deep bone bruising and soreness.  I discovered that one part of my knee is very sore to touch normally.  I nearly jumped out of my skin when she pressed somewhere that I hadn't realised was sore.  When she checked the other knee in the same spot I had the same reaction.  Apparently I just have sensitive knees.

Two hours and ten minutes later I was in a taxi on my way home, wearing a sexy compression bandage with a list of instructions for regular application of an ice pack.  

When I came back to the waiting area, there were more people and people who had been there before me were still waiting.  None of them looked happy or comfortable.  All the seats are upright and there wasn't even any way that I could sit with my leg elevated while I was waiting.  

I put my brother down as next of kin and called him to tell him what was going on.  He's a veterinarian and immediately performed a lameness exam over the phone and promptly ordered a full body cast while laughing maniacally.  I started to reconsider my decision to have him as next of kin.  After I had been seen and was waiting for the paperwork to take with me I called him again.  He obviously still thought the whole thing was hilarious and asked me what  he should say if he got a call that said I was unconscious and they needed to know whether or not to amputate.  My response was "wake me up and ask me!"

My final instructions to him were that he wasn't to plug me in or unplug me.  Nothing like a sympathetic little brother to lighten the mood.

A weekend of lying in bed reading or lying on the couch watching TV with hourly trips to the freezer to retrieve the icepack stretches before me.  And I don't have to feel guilty!  I'm pleased that I haven't sustained a serious injury  and can't imagine how much pain I'd be in if I had!

Fixing the hole

Suddenly there's a flurry of urgency to fix the hole in my ceiling, caused when a broken roof tile let the rain in and turned the ceiling into a soggy mess and the light into a fizzing danger zone.  This all happened in May.  After the initial stream of tradesmen and insurance assessors the interest in the hole in my ceiling returned to zero.

This didn't really bother me.  Although finding clothes in my wardrobe was like mining underground and applying makeup required a leap of faith, the prospect of living in a space where the ceiling is removed, replaced and painted kept me quiet.

Last week I had some missed calls from the insurer's builder.  It seemed like he thought I was the owner so I referred him to the real estate agent.  A couple of days later, I received an email from the agent asking if it was okay for her to give the key to the guy for a couple of hours on Wednesday morning so he could "do some insurance work".

I knew from the conversation I had with the insurance assessor on the day they made the assessment that the ceiling would need to be removed, a new one put in and the room painted, so I wasn't quite clear about what was going to happen on Wednesday morning.  I called her.  She didn't know anything and told me to speak to the guy.  I did.  He said they needed the room emptied and it would take at least three days to complete the job.

I called her back and repeated what I'd already told her about the works to be done.  Where was all my stuff to go?  Her suggestion was to put it in another room.  I live in a small two bedroom flat where all the rooms are used.  There's no space to just transplant a whole room of furniture and clothing!

Before I head interstate again (which would provide an ideal opportunity to do the works) I need to pack up my small personal items and find somewhere to put them.  This is easier said than done when I have a lot of work on and doing it at night time is challenging because it's dark!  My bedside lamp is designed to create a mood, not a work site.  A local charity will discover a donation of several handbags which I had forgotten I had, so I dusted them off and hope others will appreciate them.  The benefit is an enforced clean out, but the timing is awful.

Apart from these logistics, there's the issue of providing unsupervised access to my home for a bunch of work men whom I've never met.  A friend who has lived through plastering said to be prepared for the whole house to be covered in plaster dust!  None of it is good.  And it's made worse by the fact that the extent of the damage would have been minimised if the agent had done something when I first reported that I could hear dripping in the ceiling!

There's nothing I can do, but embrace the opportunity for a clean out.  Embracing with gritted teeth.

I told you I could hear dripping!

Back after a brief hiatus.  Various things piled up and toppled over and I was on the bottom of the pile. And here I am today with some actual (rather than metaphorical) piling and toppling.  It all started with the dripping.

A couple of nights ago I heard a sound in my ceiling when I was in bed.  I'm on the top floor so it wasn't neighbours walking around.  It sounded like water dripping.  I duly reported to the real estate agent that I could hear water dripping in the ceiling.  I heard it again last night.

This morning I happened to be at home when there was a very heavy downpour of rain.  I went into the bedroom to see if I could hear the dripping sound and was confronted by water trickling down the wall behind my bed!  Well, that confirmed it - I wasn't crazy,  I had been hearing dripping.

I immediately called the real estate agent.  Mine is pretty good most of the time.  She is still afflicted by the property manager's malaise - tenants are the bottom of the pile and nothing is really urgent until it's really urgent.  As I was on the phone to her, I heard sizzling and crackling and water started to run from the light fitting in the ceiling.  The property manager's first words were something like "well it's raining...no one is going to come out while it's raining."

This is the kind of statement that infuriates me in this kind of situation.  Firstly, I was very aware that it was raining.  Secondly, the longer it took to get someone to stop more water getting into the ceiling, the more serious the situation would be.  Thirdly, it's still urgent and the cumbersome processes when you have to deal with layers of different organisations take a long time to navigate.  You have to start right away.

I felt my mind leaping to the worst case scenario, so took a breath and thought about all the ways that this situation wasn't as bad as it might have been.  How fortunate that I was at home this morning!  How pleasing that I wasn't away somewhere leaving the problem unnoticed for days or maybe weeks.  The ceiling hadn't collapsed, so that was something.

I called the electricity supplier about the sizzling electricity and had a conversation that was frightening but later revealed to be hilarious.

At this stage I had a plastic bucket sitting on towels on my bed catching the water from the light fitting and towels on my bed head catching the water trickling down the walls.  The man at the electricity company said that I should not touch the bucket or the water in the bucket because it was likely to be electrified.  It seemed intense, but I wasn't going to argue and I didn't want to be electrocuted.  I asked him what I should do when the bucket needed to be emptied.  He said that was my decision.  I thought he had misunderstood the question so I clarified that I meant I wanted to know if it was safe just to tip the water out.  He said it was my decision.  I didn't understand the answer so asked him what he meant.  He then said he couldn't say anything because of the legal risk.  If I followed his advice and was still electrocuted then I might sue them.  Well probably not if I was dead, but I didn't point that out.  He then said I should vacate the property until further notice and stay away from the taps if I was going to stay.  Since I had to be there to meet plumbers and electricians I decided to stay well back from the killer taps.

Within half an hour two blokes from the electricity company arrived to see what they needed to do about supply to the property.  They looked and promptly flicked the mains switch in the switch board.  I asked them what I should do with the water in the bucket.  They looked at me as though I was a crazy cat lady and said, deadpan,  "Empty it." I laughed and explained the conversation with the guy at the electricity company.  They guffawed and shook their heads.  "Yeah, right.  So you've got a bucket of electricity...ooooh!"  They left muttering to themselves about idiots.

With that done I went into the village to buy lunch and a plastic drop sheet to cover my bed.  The $2 shop had a huge one for $2 so I bought two.  When I arrived home to cover my bed with it, a big yellow-brown patch had appeared on my fresh white sheets.  I'll bleach it later.  Buying the sheet was a good idea.

I then received a succession of phone calls from tradies called Steve and Mike and Josh.  The plumbers went on the roof and discovered two broken roof tiles.  I scouted around the property and found a couple of others lying around so they were able to stop more water filling the ceiling.  They talked nonchalantly about the prospect of ceiling collapse and replacement of the entire ceiling.  I started to think about the logistics.

Then the (very handsome) electrician arrived - all tall and broad shoulders and twinkly eyes and nice hands.  He was friendly and told stories of strange people he encounters on a regular basis.  I hope I'm not one of his stories he'll tell to the next customer.  We talked power points and my lack of them.  He told me about the power points he has installed in his place - it sounded like heaven, compared to my one power point per room.  I had power point envy!  I was sorry to see him leave and wished I had the courage to say out loud what was on my mind - it was all about inspecting my fuse box but I'll leave that thought there.

The dripping has finished and I'll be able to sleep in my bed tonight.  Hopefully the ceiling won't collapse on me.  And even if it does, I'm still pretty well off.  Even though I've just seen an enormous spider lazily walking along the water wall.

After everyone had left and the electricity was back on I boiled the kettle.  It was one of the best cups of tea I'd had for a while.

Interior decoration brought to you by the weather.
© divacultura 2013