I’ve never considered myself a huge “Mad About You” fan, but I used to enjoy catching episodes on a semi-regular basis. One scene that made me laugh and sticks out in my mind, was when Jaime demonstrates to Paul exactly how easy it is to change an empty roll of toilet paper. The scene:

Many times I’ve thought about reenacting that scene for my roommates who seem to like the class and convenience a freestanding roll brings to the operation.

Not too long ago I finally got through to them.

Shortly after that, my roommate came to me with some bad news. Apparently while changing the toilet paper roll he dropped the little plastic holder, the technical term is “insert”, while simultaneously flushing. In an instant it was goodbye insert; hello flooding toilet.

After some futile attempts at dislodging we decided our best bet would be to call Roto Rooter.

They came; they plunged; they charged $100 and left in less than 5 minutes. I can’t say I was overly thrilled about the apparent ease of running his special tools down the toilet, pushing the insert further down the line to become someone else’s problem, but who cares, the toilet appeared to be working again and what’s more the roommate paid me back.

However, even with the 24 hour guarantee on the work, I had a sinking suspicion this problem wasn’t completely resolved.

The next morning I left for my holiday to Punta Cana and returned Sunday afternoon—long after the 24 hours had expired—to discover the toilet having difficulties flushing and leaking water etc, into the basement bathroom on each flush.

I called Roto Rooter again.

Greeted by a pleasant voice on the phone, I explained the situation. She seemed pretty sure that I would have to pay for the clearing but conceded that if it was the same thing, then maybe they’d make an exception. She explained that they wouldn’t be able to tell what it was if they pushed it through. I asked about the use of a camera to check it out. Well, they had cameras, she patiently explained, but I’d be charged if they used them. So in order for me to find out whether or not I’d have to pay, I’d have to be charged. There it was, a nice little catch 22.

Later that day a new, but equally inspiring, Roto Rooter specialist showed up at my house. After a quick removal of the toilet and a little toilet water accidentally poured down the heating vent (I had to tell myself, just grin and bear it), the guy ran his toilet snake tool down the pipe where it “90s” and though he didn’t actually see that it was the same problem, he trusted my story and thankfully they didn’t charge me again.

Yay for Roto Rooter—though it did take two house calls to get it fixed.

Now I’m not saying this happened, but if you ever drop something in the toilet, don’t flush it. Be brave and pull it out, or failing that, get someone else to do it. Telling the owner of the house that it was dropped mid-flush is highly suspicious—but I realise, not impossible.

P.S. Post vacation, where you might have accidentally drank the water, is a terrible time for toilet problems. Just saying.

My old roommate and good friend Richard Hortness is on the UNLV Swim Team and last night helped the team win its second straight conference title at the 2006 MWC Swimming & Diving Championships at Oklahoma City Community College. It’s never been done before, but the UNLV men’s team won all 5 of the relays. Way to go Richard!

See his blog post telling a little about it.

A little over a week ago my roommate knocked on my bedroom door to ask me for a favour. He wanted to know if I would help him move an electric organ from the Salvation Army Thrift store into the basement. Please note that it was a fairly large and non-functioning electric organ. My mind said, “no” but my mouth said, “sure” and with a smile we walked out the door.

As we headed across town in my fairly large capacity (but not huge) Jeep Grand Cherokee he explained that the organ had worked when it was originally brought into the shop but that somehow in its first week there it had stopped doing the one thing electric organs are supposed to do—that is to say it no longer made music. But he was confident that he could fix it and the guy running the store told him he’d let him have it for free if he would just come and take it away.

We muscled that boat anchor into the street but no matter how we turned it, it just wouldn’t fit into my jeep. Please trust me when I emphasize that we turned it plenty.

“I don’t really want to unscrew the spare tire”, I stammered, “because I don’t think it will be easy to get back together.” A moment later I pushed the now free spare up against the front seats.

I don’t know why it took so long for me to process what was obvoiusly about to happen. Either he wouldn’t be able to get it working and I was going to be stuck hauling a rather heavy and awkward non-operational organ out of my basement or he would get it working and I’d have the opportunity to enjoy a constant stream of vibrations from the basement until the end of his stay in my house at which time I would still be stuck hauling out a rather heavy and awkward operational organ from my basement.

He assured me that I’d have nothing to worry about and insisted that whatever happened he would take care of it in the end.

And what do you know? He actually got it working. I’m not sure how long it took him, but I returned home from my holidays in Medicine Hat to see a collection of electronic tools, a soldering iron and plenty of parts, peices, and wires scattered around the room. I could hardly believe it but my roommate—whom has absolutely no training in electronics—figured out how to solder wires together in the proper places thereby restoring the organ. He even cleaned up the mess and it turns out that the electronic vibrations are more like music than just a noisy racket afterall.

To him I have to say, good work my friend—I’m really impressed. Now maybe I should ask him if he can figure out how to get the spare tire back in place.

So I have a story about a “friend”. To protect the identity of those involved, I’ll call my friend, “Joe”.

Joe had a foreign roommate who wanted to rent a car. The roommate was only 21, not old enough to rent a car; not to mention the fact that the only credit card the roommate had was his Dad’s. It didn’t look like the roommate would be renting a car anytime soon.

But Joe’s roommate wanted to do something special to celebrate dating his girlfriend for 100 days so Joe took pity on the roommate and did something very stupid. He rented the car for him, in his own name. To save a little money they decided not to get the insurance because—I don’t know—they were stupid.

Well as the astute reader can probably guess the phone call soon came and with it news of the collision. Luckily no one was hurt and the damage was only to the rental car.

It didn’t look too bad but there was damage in three places - the bumper, the light, and the fender. Actually the light didn’t look bad. It appeared to just be knocked out and just needed to be put back together, but that was not the case. It would cost an additional $400 to replace that too. The total came to around $1870 (in Canadian dollars of course) which the roommate did not have. He would have to borrow.

It was about a week into a new month and the roommate hadn’t payed his rent that month yet. Because he couldn’t afford to pay the damage as it was, he immediately dropped out of school and moved back to Calgary. Joe figured he would just use the damage deposit for the last month’s rent—that’s what he usually did anyway. Near the end of that same month, when it came time to pay up for the car, the roommate came back for his stuff (which had been sitting in the room indicating that even though the roommate wasn’t living there, he was still “living there”) and to pay for the damages. He had borrowed most of the amount oweing from friends but didn’t pay the full amount robbing Joe of a month’s rent about $375.

Since Joe had lied about who would be, and who had been driving the car at the time of the accident, there was pretty much nothing he could do. The story has a few morals:

• Always get insurance
• Don’t lie about who is going to drive—even if it’ll save you a few bucks
• Don’t assume your roommate will pay up and hold his stuff until he does (if you can)
• It doesn’t always pay to be a good guy especially if you have to lie
• (and my personal favorite) honesty is the best policy

The sad thing is, Joe even knew there was a really good chance this guy would get into an accident. But he just felt unnaturally compelled to help the guy out. Chalk the whole thing up to gaining experience I guess.

My new roommate moved in today. Everything seems to be working out nicely for me. I think I’m just inherently lucky.

One of my roommates let me know that he is moving out at the end of the month. I will now need to find another roommate. If you or someone you know needs a place to live in Lethbridge let me know.

My parents have a rental property in Medicine Hat that they are also trying to rent - it’s a house in Southridge. The previous tenants did quite a number on the place and didn’t pay for their last couple months either. Eventually they had to be evicted, and now I think my folks have finally got the place ready for new tenants.

My new roommate arrived from Calgary today. He is from Korea and is in Canada developing his English skills. He seems like a really nice guy.

I’ve got a room for rent in Lethbridge. Of course I won’t be home from Malaysia for a few more weeks but if you are looking for a place in June or July please leave me a message in the comments or via email.

My roommate is swimming in the Nationals in Calgary this weekend. He is swimming against some big names like Rick Say and Matt Rose. He swam a personal best time this morning, placing 4th and going 23.03s in the 50 Free preliminaries. I haven’t heard how the finals went, but I’m definitely excited for him.

Update: The results are in, Richard went 23.36s in the finals taking 8th place in 50 Free at the Nationals. He swims again tomorrow and Sunday.

All is good in roommate land. Although, yesterday I caught my roommate trying to cook chicken in the oven—without a pan. I guess he thought it would be like a little barbecue in the house. Luckily, Anna and I, saw him and suggested a pan before a fire ensued.

Today my newest roommate moved in, meanwhile I moved a bunch of old furniture out. I now have an old dresser, a table, some clothes, and a couple of beds that are sitting in the back yard waiting for a garage sale, or a trip to the Salvation Army.

My other roommate is cooking us all a big dinner which I can smell through the air. She is making us a special spinach and feta penne. My stomach is growling; I can’t wait.

Last time on Jeff Milner’s Roommate Situation:

“…it turns out that when a NSF cheque bounces, they mail it to you—which means I have to wait until I get it in the mail before he will pay me back.”

Now the exciting conclusion!

When I received the bounced cheque in the mail I called him up and later that night he returned me my cash.

The End.

(I love happy endings.)

I’ve been short on roommates lately. I have two empty rooms to rent and I haven’t had any roommates in the last couple months—which makes paying the mortgage pretty hard. So a couple of weeks ago I put an ad in the paper. The very first day the ad ran I had two people call me. The first person, I’ll call him Ed, said he would like to take the room but just needed a couple of days to get the money together. The second person, I’ll call him Victor, told me he loved the place and wanted to take it. Victor couldn’t move in until July 1st, but told me that he would write me a cheque for June anyway to hold the place for him. Things were looking up.

A day or two later I got a call from Ed. He said he couldn’t get out of his current lease as quickly as he had thought and so he wanted to let me know he wouldn’t be taking the room. Ed seemed like a cool guy so I was disappointed but life goes on.

Later I stopped off at the bank to cash Victor’s cheque. They gave me cash and everything seemed cool; so things were still looking up.

That day, just after returning from the bank, I found a message from Victor on my answering machine. It said, “About that cheque I gave you—someone gave me a bad cheque and so it might not clear, so if you haven’t cashed it yet I’ll bring you some cash and get it back from you.”

Well I had cashed it already and the bank didn’t seem to have a problem with it, I explained to Victor. He figured he must have had enough cash in the bank even with the bad cheque he’d gotten and advised me not to worry about it. Things were a little odd, but still looking good. I was still getting calls for my other room—they seemed like sketchy characters and I didn’t take them but at least people were looking.

Suddenly the phone rang, Anna-Maria picked it up. Victor couldn’t take the room anymore, he said he was on his way over to get back his $350 and he would explain more fully when he arrived.

I told Anna-Maria that I don’t really have to give him his money back, after all he paid me to hold the room and that’s exactly what I was doing. But I also said that I wouldn’t be a jerk and give him it back since it had only been a couple of days.

His explanation boiled down to the fact that the contract he had signed for his previous place said he had to live there for 6 months before he could break the contract and move out. Also he had to give 30 days notice before leaving. He thought he could give his 30-day notice before the end of the six months but his landlord said no. Even though I thought it sounded like his landlord was just screwing him over he just said he didn’t want the hassle and was sorry for the inconvenience he caused me. He would take back his money but leave me $50 for my trouble. So at least I would have some cash for another ad if needed.

Days past. I was pursuing my bank account status over the Internet and was shocked to discover that I had been debited $350 for a cheque that never cleared! Oh hell—I think I have been scammed.

I called up Victor and explained the situation. Luckily he seems pretty apologetic and sounds like he wants to make everything right. He says we’ll go down to the bank together, get the cheque back, and then he’ll pay me back and any charges the bank may have given me. He specifically mentioned that he needs his cheque back before he will pay me for it. I called the bank this morning to find out if they do, in fact, still have the cheque and if I can get it back. It turns out that when a NSF cheque bounces, they mail it to you—which means I have to wait until I get it in the mail before he will pay me back.

Needless to say this is all a very big headache.

On the other hand I have two new roommates—one of whom moved in on Saturday and another one is moving in on the 25th. We’ll see how this bounced cheque situation works out, but for now things are looking good again.

We finally buckled. My roommates and I are getting cable. The cable guy is supposed to be coming on Wednesday—they said that someone needs to be home all day. I don’t know how they get off having someone ruin their day waiting for the stupid cable guy to come, you’d think they could at least narrow it down to a couple of hours. Well I guess that’s just the way the world works. Hopefully with all the roommates that I have now at least one of them will be able to stick around. Speaking of roommates, I was happily surprised to find that while I was in Calgary my roommates moved the fridge in for me. Sure now that I have another fridge my house looks even more like a furniture/appliance store, but it’s a store with plenty of food.

It’s finally come to this—I need a second fridge. Not just for space but for sanitation reasons as well. One of my roommates had one of those giant cans of tomato sauce in the fridge. You know the kind I mean, they must hold about 5 litres of sauce. Well instead of sealing it away in any kind of airtight container he just cut the lid half way off, folded it up to use it and then folded it back down to, you know, keep the mold out. Well needless to say he had a fine culture growing rapidly in a mostly full 5 litre can of tomato sauce. He seemed hesitant to throw it out.

He did eventually throw it out and we cleaned the fridge up pretty good. However, the situation still requires a second fridge for all of our food. Anna’s mother so kindly gave her a huge amount of groceries and we don’t want any of it to go bad so we need more fridge space. Luckily everything fit so far. We really do appreciate the groceries. So if anyone has a fridge for sale or for “giving away” please let us know.

The roommate—another one that didn’t even really live here (he moved in halfway through July then he was in Japan for half of August) has decided to go back to Japan. Of course he wants to stay for 8 days in September. I told him that I would only charge him for half a month. I try not to feel bad for being a nice guy. I mean he has hardly even been here and making him pay an entire month for 8 days isn’t really the fair thing to do. I suppose being fair won’t make me rich but at least I’ll be able to sleep at night (or maybe I won’t with all the stress of paying the bills).

He is selling his Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s runs in 4×4 mode all the time. It has a powerful V8 engine and shiny dark green paint. He even installed an MP3 CD player. Buying it would mean no more worries about my Cavalier and it would give me the opportunity to go kayaking in style - whenever I wanted. I haven’t really been able to go kayaking at all this year because I don’t have a way to get my kayaks to the river.

It seems like buying it is a great idea, except of course for the fact that I don’t really have any money to buy it. He’s selling it so cheaply compared to what it is worth that I feel like I need to buy it. He needs to sell it by September 8th (12 days) or else he’ll have to “give it away” to the dealer. I’m sure the dealer won’t give him anything near what it’s worth. How will I get the money to pay for it? Also I think he is closing his bank account, so I think that means he’ll want the money in cold hard cash. Probably won’t find a dealer willing to pay cash. Maybe I’ll be able to talk him down more if I use bills as a bargaining tool.