I Am Cursed

Okay, so I am not one of those helpless female types. Have I ever changed a tire? No, but not because I don't know how. I even know how to change the oil in my car, I'd just rather not risk fucking it up. 

But see, I have this husband who reminds me of Tim the ToolMan Taylor. Anyone remember Home Improvement? Anyway, so he likes to jimmy-rig shit around the house and can somehow figure out a way to fix just about any problem that comes up. I don't have to deal with it. 

There's a really long background story here, but I won't get into it. Suffice it to say that we HATE our condo association. When I was renting my apartment 3 miles away, I received a million times more respect from the property management than we do here - where we OWN our condo. Our cars have been towed across state lines 4 times at our expense - and for no reason. But I digress.

So the basement of our condo shares a wall with the communal laundry room of our building that we never use because we have our own washer/dryer. My husband figured out a way to run an outlet off the electricity in the laundry room so that he could power the lights and heater for his reptile cage in the basement. Shady, I know. I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen. 

The first day he left, after getting my lecture about taking care of his somewhat-dangerous pet, I ventured into the basement to find that the light was off. This is not good - the temp needs to be at least 80 degrees in there at all times, and it was 50. At first I thought the bulb went out - no big deal I can get one from Petco. But then I realized the heater wasn't on either, and I freaked out thinking that they figured out what he was doing and disconnected the outlet. 

So I switched everything over to an outlet on our circuit, and all was fine. Great, crisis averted. 

During a very brief conversation with my husband while he was at the airport, he explained that the circuit breaker in the laundry room probably flipped. I'm not dealing with that. I'll just pay my own electricity, thank you very much. 

Day 2 - I go down to the basement to check on dangerous pet, the fucking light is off again. This time the heater is working. The bulb burned out. Went to Petco, replaced the bulb. 

Today - I go down to the basement to do laundry. Something smells funny - moldy almost. It didn't smell that way yesterday. I turn around and hear a "drip, drip, drip." The ceiling of the basement is soaking wet, right underneath the stairs of the upstairs unit. There is no pipe there - it's the actual ceiling that's soaked. I have a bucket underneath it right now. 

My upstairs neighbor is first and foremost a douchebag. I've called the cops on him several times for beating up various women who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in his apartment. He is a nasty, nasty drunk and I hate him. He scares me. 

I haven't heard him walking around all day, which means he's probably still sleeping. If I knock on the door, I risk several things:

#1 Pissing him off by waking him up. 

#2 Pissing him off by pointing out that something in his stairwell is leaking into my basement and he needs to fix it. 

#3 Letting him know unintentionally that my husband is not living here at the moment and therefore I am alone every single night in the unit right below his. 

It's the last one that really fucking bothers me. 

The alternative, of course, is to keep letting the water come down until the ceiling rots and he falls through his stairwell into my basement when he comes stomping out to go to work. 

It has been 3 days since my husband left. WTF else am I going to have to deal with???