Amazing what you can learn in a day about any particular thing.

Today I met J., one of the tenants of my building. He's been here ten years, through at least 3 owners, and told me alot about the water system, the exterior "repairs", and the yard.

By his estimation, our landlady has alienated almost every contractor on the island, and has essentially been blacklisted. The change orders on my unit resulted in the plumbing being moved five times. Now, this building deserves respect, but honey, it's not the fucking Taj Mahal. It's the Cove Apartments, meant to live out an unassuming life. Knowing that there were insane numbers of change orders somehow gives me a certain peace. I'm not thinking ill of the contractors anymore; the landlady complained how you just can't get any of them to stick to a schedule, which is a perennial island complaint, but now I am more apt to believe it is her fault they don't come back, not theirs.

When I moved in, I wondered why my unit had a disposal in the sink. As far as I could tell, we were on a well and septic system, and I was always told you can't put food in your septic tank, just like you can't flush non-bodily wastes in the toilet. Turns out that there has been complaint from not only our building tenants but from homeowners down the beach who share our water system. They were pissed, and rightly so, that some units got disposals and dishwashers. I know the landlady was trying to make the place more attractive (because the exterior wasn't going to do the selling), but those of us accustomed to authentic island living know that you don't use dishwashers and disposals on a septic system. I choose not to use mine.

J. explained that the shared pipe that moves our wastewater is ancient, and resides in front of the bulkhead, UNDER the gravel, UNDER Puget Sound, and woe betide us if it breaks. For the 6 or 8 houses south of us, and our 9 units, and two units north of us, this pipe takes all our poo-water, moves it north, around the point, into the cove, and to a pump. The pump moves it up to a plateau midway between the beach and the upper neighborhood of Beulah Park, and into huge settling tanks. Don't know what happens after that. All I know is that I will have a greater respect for the water situation here.

This kind of water situation is not unusual on Vashon. There are hundreds of cobbled-together water systems on this and other islands in the area. Apparently, in August, we will have greatly reduced water supply and pressure. Conserve, conserve, conserve. And when the power goes out, as it did here for 5 days after the windstorm, the poo pipe doesn't pump, and the only capacity we have is the pipe itself. If it's yellow, let it mellow.

J. says to store water against the next outage. He uses his bathwater to water the plants. He is an old hand at conserving.

So, here we are in Port-au-Patios, #7, thinking we're going to have to take some matters into our own mostly capable hands. Nothing new there. I keep myself level by thinking "summer at the beach" and "water view" and "what the landlady doesn't know won't hurt her".

Y'all chime in any time.

There were otters in the cove today, and O. says the orcas came up the passage yesterday and are around the island, eating chum salmon. Nice things happen here, too. It's not all survivalism and hunkering down. There are rewards.