If We Only Had An Arc

Cleaning the house is something no one wants to do, well usually no one. Getting all dirty and sweaty cleaning is not my idea of a good time. As it currently stands in my house, mostly every room is clean. The kitchen is modestly clean, as are the bathrooms and other common areas. I admit it right now, my room is a mess. Pop cans, papers, a few dishes, clothes, all spread on the floor. I don't have old food growing other organisms on it, or animals or pests in my room, so it's not affecting anyone else. We're all pretty good about cleaning messes in common areas, we take turns and dishes don't normally sit for too long without being washed. When we all head home for breaks, we clean the place pretty well. Garbages and recycling bins are emptied, and the fridge is cleaned out.


Thanksgiving this year, three of us were heading all the way home, one went to Chatham and one roommate stayed in Windsor. The roommate who stayed behind was left alone for a day and a half, to do whatever she wanted. We didn't expect her to flood the house in the time we left her. She took it upon herself to clean the bathroom thoroughly, the shower was going to be scrubbed and the floors cleaned. The problem with living in a house of five girls is the drain gets clogged easily with hair. The bathroom she decided to clean on her own has a drain that is very temperamental, and sometimes drains and sometimes doesn't. So, this roommate who we'll call Rybbon, put cleaning solution in the shower, and decided to let the water stay on to clean away the solution. Rybbon left the water running and went into her room. It wasn't until water came in under Rybbon's door that she realized something was wrong. The shower hadn't drained. Instead, it overflowed, sending water gushing into the upstairs hallway. Rybbon immediately built a dam of sorts to stop the flow of water from going into anyone else's room, and ran downstairs to see if anything had gone wrong. And of course, it did. The ceiling was dripping from several places, and the microwave was filling with water, and thankfully the microwave was not plugged in at the time. In panic, Rybbon ran to another neighbouring house to get help. When she found a friend who had also stayed in Windsor, they called the RA on duty to come help. The RA never got the message. The last course of action was to call the campus police, and in turn, also call the fire department to come.


The aftermath of the flood had many casualties. There were various towels that had to put to rest, some shampoo bottles that got swept up in the tidal wave have passed on, and the microwave has left us peacefully. I learned about the catastrophe first by a text message, and then by a Facebook message sent to all of us. I couldn't help but laugh when I walked into our house the Monday after my weekend at home. Around the kitchen, there were various pots and bowls, collecting water. It was chaos, but in the end, we laughed because she managed to create such a disaster in 24 hours. Things could have been much worse, so in the end we were lucky. So, my advice for everyone out there today that lives with roommates, is to never leave the roommate most accident prone alone in an empty house.