Trouble in Paradise

Those of you who have been to our humble apartment have experienced the adventure of trying to use the toilet without crashing through the floor into the crawlspace. The soggy wood under the linoleum around the toilet and tub made you feel like you were taking your life in your hands if you stood too close! Well, it turns out- you really were! After 3 years of soggy floors, I finally had my friend Jay Mansanarez (a general contractor) come over to redo our floors. This is what they found under 3, count them, 3 layers of soggy linoleum:

The wood underlay was rotting away. Through the big hole on the left you can see down to the crawlspace. There is another hole in the upper right corner by the tub. Most of the wood by the tub was rotted like this

Here is a picture of the other corner by the tub, also completely rotting away.

And this is the big winner! These moldy beams should be attached to the wall to hold up our tub and toilet, but as you can see, the plumbers we hired last summer decided to cut them out to put in more plumbing! There was absolutely nothing between us and a 4 foot fall.

It is so nice to have normal floors now! I still catch myself tip-toeing around the bathroom sometimes but things are better than new!