Attack of the killer bathroom tiles!

Written on June 12, 2007

Okay, okay, there weren’t actually any “killer” bathroom tiles, but now that I have your attention…

I was in the shower last week (and no, that was not the last time I showered, smart alec! ) when I noticed that the tiled wall seemed to give a bit when I leaned on it. I thought nothing of it at the time. But the next time I was in the shower, and I leaned on the wall, one tile jumped off the wall in a suicide bid, while the others sunk in and tried to bite my shiny metal… wait, I don’t have a shiny metal backside do I? Okay, I am exaggerating a bit. But the tiles did sink into the wall.

So, I am left with one tile in the tub, and some more tiles trying to escape to safety inside the wall. It turns out that the drywall the tiles were mounted on got soaked over time and was quite soft, and my leaning on the wall was just too much for that poor drywall. (To any drywallers reading: Am I master of the obvious or what?) How did the water get in, you ask? Well, somehow, the grout became cracked between several tiles, and the water got in through the cracks. Hmmm… I think that those tiles have been planning their escape for some time now…

Well, now the warden, er, landlord is now involved. A riot sqad, um, no, a repairperson will be here in about a week. In the meantime, I need to “contain” the problem to reduce water leakage into the wall. A nice large clear trash bag will do nicely. Since I have been having my shiny metal- er, (crud!) I mean my backside kicked by working the night shift, my wife performed the containment procedure.

Now that those suckers (tiles) are safely contained, I think I can take an uneventful shower again, right? Wrong! I ended up forgetting about the tiles and leaned on the soft wall again. Another tile jumped again, only to become trapped in the plastic containment device (trash bag). This time, yet another tile jumped – inside the wall! Those pesky tiles…

I decided to totally ignore the tiles from now on. Since then, there have been no activity from them. I am sitting here typing this blog entry, while half of my brain is sleeping, waiting for the riot squad to finish handling the tile problem. I can not wait to get some sleep, since I have to work again tonight. Actually, I think that my brain is fully asleep, after reading this post again…