a problem i never expected to have in another country

Leaky pipes.

The problem was discovered when a very angry, very old man came upstairs Monday griping something about "l'eau" "tombe-ing" in his "chambre." Okay, three words I can understand- water, falling, bedroom. What the angry old man doesn't understand is that I "parle un petit peu," while he continued somewhat mildly ranting. Mind you, he is of the age where he asked me three times what floor this was (troisieme) when he only had to walk up one flight of stairs, and there is a very large 3 on the lift. Anyway, I told the agency, but nothing changed yesterday except now we have 3 new girls (and 1 shower and 1 water closet).

Today at 930 I woke up to the sound of 5 girls running around an apartment, some already in heels, yelling. Then 10 minutes later I hear banging on the doors, and a girl saying "Don't open it! Call the agency!" I walk out, I open the door, and there is my friend, Mr. Happy Pants, my neighbor downstairs.

The convo went somewhat like this:

Mr. Happy Pants: L'EAU! L'EAU! MA CHAMBRE! SOMETHINGSOMETHING TOMBE! SOMETHING SOMETHING ARRETEZ!
Me: Desole! Desole. Je ne sais pas! Je parle un petite peu!
M. HP: L'EAU EN CHAMBRE! followed by lots of words I don't understand but I imagine it was "Bitch! Why didn't you fix this? I told you on Monday. Stop the water! It is falling in my room!"
Me: Je ne sais pas! Je ne sais pas! Je suis telephoner mon agence! Je parle un petit peu!
M. HP: ARRETEZ! ARRETEZ! L'EAU! SOMETHING SOMETHING THE POLICE!"

And he ran downstairs.

Then I got my manager's number and went downstairs to give it to him. On the sheet I wrote, which I thought was clever and quite clear, "Telephonez. Je ne parle pas. Il est mon manager." I repeated to him what I wrote on the sheet. "Telephonez le number." Again he started screaming at yours truly, and finally the super came downstairs. Until this moment, I had no idea who she was. Apparently "super" is a word I need to learn today. She calmly strolled in, checked out his room, and from a distance I heard "Ohh la la. Ohh la la." I think the water was really bad. I'm sure quite a few of the girls showered this morning, used the toilet, used the sink, etc.

She politely called my manager who wasn't answering unfortunately. Then a few minutes later she came up to turn off the water. Si, elle ne parle pas anglais, and she said a bunch of other stuff to me I didn't understand. I did get though that she was very sorry, that the guy was very old (and maybe alone), that sometimes we slam the door? (my guess), and that she was the "director" of the apartment. Whatever. She's rad and at least very nice. And I survived my first problem d'apartment en francais.

To be continued...