Take a bow as the light hits the face

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit! For an introduction to the idiosyncracies of our apartment, last night our bathroom cabinet tried to fall off the wall, which is how we discovered it had been hung by people who seem not to have understood several essential concepts about screws and drywall and the distribution of weight, which is how at four in the morning we were taking the heavy mirrored door off its hinges in hopes of it not actually smashing into the sink in the night. It did not and this morning we had a visit from the plumber come to fix a totally unrelated and fortunately uncomplicated issue under the sink. I would find all of this funnier had it not completely deprived me of sleep, but it makes a change from the front steps.

Comments

[cmcmck]

We realised when we purchased this place that the previous owners thought they were up to DiY.

Um.....no!

Six years later we have just about undone all their stupidities!

[sovay]

Six years later we have just about undone all their stupidities!

My parents' house has been a similar exercise for the last thirty years—it was built in the 1950's by a local fire chief who was by all accounts a perfectly reasonable fire chief, but not one of nature's great home architects. Even now, they're still finding little instances of construction WTF. Personally I will never get over discovering that our kitchen ceiling was wallpapered. About six inches deep.

[pameladean]

Yikes! I can't help wondering if the constant vibration of the porch repair might have shaken loose such support as the cabinet ever had.

Previous owners are such bozos. I wonder what we are doing that will cause the next occupants to lose sleep and possibly curse us. I hope it's not as bad as the cabinet.

P.

[sovay]

Yikes! I can't help wondering if the constant vibration of the porch repair might have shaken loose such support as the cabinet ever had.

That is actually spatch's theory. We've been complaining about the walls buzzing for weeks.

Previous owners are such bozos. I wonder what we are doing that will cause the next occupants to lose sleep and possibly curse us. I hope it's not as bad as the cabinet.

In this case it is a quite recently installed cabinet, so I blame the owners less than whoever they hired to work on the bathroom, but is it ever not a well-installed cabinet. We found the installation guide and never mind the wall anchors, I don't think a spirit level was involved.

[davidgillon]

Sods law says these things only happen at night.

[sovay]

Sods law says these things only happen at night.

I see no reason to doubt it. The explosions of baby spiders in our old apartment were always at four in the morning, too.

!

[kathmandu]

I think if you managed to intervene early enough to keep the glass breaking, that still counts as a win.

Re: !

[sovay]

I think if you managed to intervene early enough to keep the glass breaking, that still counts as a win.

Thank you! We figure this way if it falls off the wall, it will mess up our medications and we'll have composite all over the floor, but we'll still have a sink.

[ethelmay]

That is the second post I have read recently about cabinets falling off walls. Though the other might have been an old post - I can't remember now whose it was. I was having a fit of randomly following up commenters to see if their blogs looked interesting.

When our front porch was rebuilt some twenty years ago, it was discovered that the side supports for the old steps (they may have a proper name I don't know), which are usually single pieces of wood with sawtooth bits cut out, had instead been constructed by nailing triangles to the edge of another piece of wood. I am amazed that the triangles didn't pull out about two weeks after being so nailed. The steps had felt a bit rickety, but little had we known how rickety. As my sister said when she saw it, "Someone wasn't very clear on the concept."

[sovay]

That is the second post I have read recently about cabinets falling off walls.

What a weird epidemic.

which are usually single pieces of wood with sawtooth bits cut out, had instead been constructed by nailing triangles to the edge of another piece of wood.

That is not the same thing!

As my sister said when she saw it, "Someone wasn't very clear on the concept."

Our original front porch also seems to have been constructed on unclear lines. It's one of the reasons we aren't sorry it's been rebuilt from the literal ground up. It was kind of horrifying to contemplate what the second story overhang had been hanging over.

[gwynnega]

Oh dear. I'm glad you were able to keep the mirrored door from smashing into the sink, but four in the morning is not a great time to have to deal with such things.

[sovay]

Oh dear. I'm glad you were able to keep the mirrored door from smashing into the sink, but four in the morning is not a great time to have to deal with such things.

It really isn't! We were heavily invested in going to bed!

(Thank you.)

[nineweaving]

Sheesh. Your new landlords, bless them, appear to be babes in the wood. Very glad you don't have broken mirror all over the floor and smashed porcelain.

Nine

[sovay]

Very glad you don't have broken mirror all over the floor and smashed porcelain.

Thank you. We don't think it was our landlords who installed it, but I look forward to them authorizing someone to come and really install it.

[mrissa]

Uff da what a thing.

[sovay]

Uff da what a thing.

It's still on the wall! I am seriously contemplating, though, whether we just want to take it off the wall before we begin to push our luck, since we do not have immediately incoming repair people.

[asakiyume]

Other people's DIY fixes and improvements so often cause latter-day misery -_-