No water drama

A pipe from our house to the water main in the street had a leak.  A 90gal/hr leak.  The water company came and shut our water off then jumped us to the neighbor's water line.  This was Thursday night.  Friday afternoon, the neighbor's gardener (not the same as our gardener - yes, we do actually pay for a gardener to come 2x a month...does that make us pretentious?) unhooked the jump.  So we were out water from Friday afternoon until Friday night, when the jump was put back on.  Then our landlord and duplex-sharing neighbors had the arduous task of finding a contractor willing to take on the fix.  Naila said the fix was estimated at $5k.  Yikes.  Glad we are renting! :)  That water bill is going to be horrible enough.  On Saturday, Our landlord picked up one of the day laborers at Home Depot that said he was a contractor...he got to our place and refused the job, declined the ride back to HD and left, walking.  Not a good sign.  Then a guy knocked on the door and gave me his phone when it was clear I did not speak Chinese.  The guy on the phone explained that our landlord sent him over to take a look.  He dug around a bit then left.  he never came back.  Art and the neighbor spend a bit of time in the morning, before Zachary's soccer game trying to uncover the pipes, digging and digging.  The boys helped a bit too, though W preferred to dig elsewhere in the shade.  Art got a blister and nearly passed out b/f calling it quits. :)  Finally in the evening a new guy came and worked by himself.  he was a machine, digging out the pipe, etc.  He set up lights so he could work into the night.  He was still working when we went to bed at 11pm.  Ray said he left around 1am when it was fixed.  Crazy.  All this drama and I did not take a single picture.  Not one.

Also, here is San Jose Water Company for you....I called about the leak on Thursday morning.  They said since it was not an emergency, they would not send someone until Friday morning.  However, someone showed up Thursday evening, as we were headed out for date night.  He said that someone from the neighborhood called about the water leaking into the street and he got sent out right away...huh???....AND he was not told that we had already called about it.  Fantastic communication.