Is that water coming from the ceiling?

Every apartment is plagued with "apartment problems".  Approximately half of these have to do with the water, specifically in the bathroom.

About a month after I moved in with my downstairs neighbors, my former roommate Greg came down to let me know that there was a problem.  I figured this had something to do with money, of which I had none, so I ignored it.  When he knocked again, half an hour later, I went upstairs to see just what the hell it was he wanted.

"Corey's in the bathroom," Greg told me.

Okay.  Whatever.

I went to the bathroom and tapped on the door.  Corey responded with a screeching, "HELP ME," to which I responded, "What the fuck?" and peeked inside.

There was Corey, haphazardly dressed in green swim trunks, trying his damndest to plug the jet of water that was spewing from the wall where the faucet had once been.  For some reason a chef's knife was plunged into the linoleum flooring.  The only thing I could do to help was call the maintenance man.  Any apartment dweller should be laughing at the futility of this decision.

Half an hour later, the maintenance man came up, but immediately left again, as could have been anticipated.  I was soaked, bailing Corey out with a gallon jug and a tea cup. He had been in the tub for about 2 hours and was pruning something awful, but I wasn't about to switch roles with him.  Meanwhile, Greg had been surfing the internet, likely hooking up with 16 year olds, as he did so frequently, while Erik and I tried to keep the building from flooding.  Could we ask more from Greg?  Absolutely not.  He was essentially useless; an ugly piece of art.

After all was said and done, the city had to come shut water off to the entire property (some 300 units) and install new fixtures in the bathroom.  I had wasted an entire day off from work making sure I didn't have water damage to my ceiling, and all the while, I was consoling an anxious, high-strung Corey in the bathtub with pressurized, boiling hot water and an ignorant Greg, who kept wanting to tell me the Mets' record in 1998.

To this day I will not take charge of any bathroom situation, no matter how dire.