I need a bath

Did I miss a hurricane or something? Why else would the water from the city have been turned off for 36 hrs or more? Not only do I need a bath, I have laundry to do and floors to mop. Miguel has a pool to clean and top up, and plants to water. Thank goodness we do not have guests here or at the apartment in La Gloria, because we probably don't have enough water for them.

We are in water hoarding mode. The water in the tub is from yesterday morning's bath (oh, it was such a nice bath too). I saved the bath water because on Monday I detected a leak in the toilet tank (water on the floor was my first clue). I shut off the water supply to the tank, which meant we could not flush the toilet. So we've been using the bath water to force-flush the toilet.

Little did I know that even though the toilet is now fixed, we may be close to running out of the supply from our rooftop tanks and we'll need that water in the tub for flushing again.

This weekend my family arrives for vacation. I would really like to clean the house before they get here, and I will be very upset if they cannot use our pool, take a shower, or flush.

I guess I should be happy we have two tanks on the roof because even though it's a surprise to turn on the hose and find nothing coming out, at least we have a reserve. There are some people who do not have tanks, and when the water just suddenly stops running as it did yesterday, those people are simply out of luck.

We had a water problem at this time last year, but it never lasted for this long - usually just part of the day (which was bad enough!). Part of the problem last year was that the pressure from the street was so bad at times that even though we had water coming from the hose, it did not have enough pressure to push it up to the tanks on the roof. We fought the water battle on and off for weeks, switching from tanks to street water and back again as the supply permitted. It dragged on so long and was such a hassle that Miguel finally installed a pump to push the water up to the tanks. However, that doesn't help when there's simply no water to be pushed up. We're stuck until the water comes on again.

I can't imagine what it might be like for hotels and other rental properties. I hope they have lots of reserves, or there will be a lot of smelly people here.

What is the cause of this water problem? I don't know, but last year I felt that it was due to all the construction and cement work (they need water to mix cement). The only day that wasn't a problem was Sundays, when the cement workers were off. For the last several weeks we've had intermittent times where the water has been shut off, but they've been working on the pipelines so we thought it was due to that. Perhaps it's due to an increased demand in Cancun for spring break. Perhaps it's due to increased construction. Perhaps I'll never really know the cause.

All I know is that I hope the darn water starts flowing any minute now as I'm tired of going out every hour or so and looking for a trickle, any sign that someone recognizes that we don't have any water and it's a royal pain in the rear.