I really think that if you spend a little money to keep a house in working order, it will pay off in the long run. Obviously, not everyone sees it this way.

I love my little house, but more importantly I love the fact I have cheap rent. Although today I realized that everything has a price. Yesterday, my downstairs neighbor let me know that our basement was flooding. When I went down there with her, it was obvious that is was not just our washing machine run amuck, but something was wrong. I gathered it from the smell and the debris floating around. Yep, it was sewage. Nasty, stinky bathroom sewage. I headed upstairs to call my landlord and let him know the situation. Seems this is not the first time something like this has occurred, so he knew whom to call. He called me back to let me know that someone would be by Sunday morning to fix it

This morning at 8:30 Roto Rooter came by to fix the problem. It seems there were two drains that needed to be fixed, but my landlord only wanted them to do one. He was going to come by and fix the other. At one point my landlord was on the phone with me and asked if I thought the basement needed to be cleaned. I told him that I was not an expert, but I thought since bathroom refuse was down there, a little sanitation seemed like a good idea. He then asked me if I had rubber gloves. I almost laughed out loud. There is NO WAY I am cleaning that up. I politely explained that I did not have gloves, a bucket, or any disinfectant, so maybe he would need to help out. He grumbled, but came over. I can still smell the disinfectant he used. He tried to say the drain clog was our fault, due to feminine-non-toilet-paper-products lodged in the pipes. I apologized, but mentioned that the Roto Rooter folks said they pulled out tree roots too, which may have caused a blockage. He left it alone then and when to finish cleaning the basement.