This was such a "holy crap there is too much dumb" moment that I just had to share, because maybe you all can find some humor in this (something I'm still working on).

First a little background. We live in houses that were built in the 50's, but by no means are they those cute little fixer-uppers with character. They lean, sag, creak, thump, have inches of paint on the walls so that they are no longer even. Good news though, all of extra paint is pretty much hiding away the threat of lead paint! The houses were even given the name "Legacy" in hopes of us being so enthralled with a fancy name, that we wouldn't notice that we lived in old square issue filled boxes.

Yes, I am fully aware that we chose to live in these houses. We chose the older houses because we got a lot more space and really the new homes have their own issues as well. It is base housing after all. Sadly though it doesn't change the fact that these are old, cheaply, and dumbly made houses.

Dumbly? You might ask.Lets look at the fact that we live in Ohio...which gets cold in the winter. So WHY oh why would you build houses with water pipes on outside walls!? And why oh why would you not do everything in your power insulate said pipes when it comes to light that it's a major freezing issue.

Can you see where this going?

Yeah, our pipes froze. Though we couldn't be cool and have the ingoing freeze. Oh no no! They had to freeze in our outgoing pipes. Sweet. This of course happened in our kitchen sink, over the weekend. It wasn't a huge deal until the excess water started backing up into our dishwasher. It's really funny when you are scooping out water and knowing you can't dump it in the sink. Or...the sidewalk unless we want a mini ice skating rink out our back door. Luckily after a call to check to make sure we still had said issues, maintenance showed up.

This is where a simple issue turned into a HUGE issue.

How do you clear a pipe that may or may not be frozen? First you plunge it. Then you give my husband the fifth degree about what we've been slopping down the drains.

Oh I'm sorry...should I not be stuffing it with cotton balls and tampons!? My bad.

After all of the oh so very hard work on their part (insert huge amounts of sarcasm) They brought antifreeze into my house and then dumped it down the sink. Now let me say I was not home for this, my husband was. I think he was a little too baffled at that moment to say anything. But when I found out I just about flipped my lid. They brought antifreeze into my house that happens to have a dog in it. Some of you might be saying "Ashley didn't you say that your sink was draining into your dishwasher?", why yes I did. When we opened the door guess what we found...antifreeze in our dishwasher.

Brilliant.

Then they left, saying that they would be back with a drain snake. They just forgot to mention that when they said that they would be back, that they meant in 5 hours. Sans drain snake.

I was not pleased at all. Even less so when they came back and started talking to me like I was a small child when I called them out on the fact that they could hurt and or kill my dog with antifreeze. I was repeatedly told that it was RV antifreeze and that it wouldn't hurt us. While I repeatedly told them that antifreeze is antifreeze when it comes to being deadly to pets. Yes...I get that it would help with the blockage, but it's still not okay. Then...because these guys were beyond smart and they wanted to make sure that the blockage was clear, they ran our dishwasher.

Take that in for a second.

Now, not only was the bottom of our dishwasher coated, the whole machine was. They then stopped it and told us we should take our dishes out to be safe. Wait, didn't you you just tell us that this antifreeze wouldn't hurt us!? They then told us that all we had to do was run water for a bit to flush it out of the system and it would be completely gone, but that the clogging wouldn't be an issue because the pipes were now coated in antifreeze. Can we say TONS of contradictions!?

Oh and I would personally like to thank said maintenance guys for making my house smell like sweet antifreeze, OB and stale cigarette smoke. I think I might try to bottle that scent and sell it.

Now to come back to the beginning. Seeing as they ran the dishwasher with dishes in it and we had nowhere out of Emmett reach to put the dishes, they went to live in our guest bathroom, with the door shut. Now that we have run the dishwasher 3 times without anything in it other than bleach, we can finally put the rack back in the washer. Where we will now have to wash the dishes at least twice, if not more.

Maybe in a few weeks...or months I'll laugh about this. Right now though, I am fuming.

Dumb makes my head hurt.

Here's one last "artsy" shot of my bathroom turned dish rack room.