The Cellar (Dun dun dun...)

The house we're currently living in is really, really tiny, and it's really, really old. It's been fixed up, of course, but whoever did the fixing up really cheaped out on a lot of things, so this house causes us a lot of problems. And as we're just renting, it's not like we're going to throw away more money and fix these things, because honestly, our rent is really high for such a crappy place as it is.
Anyhow, yesterday it was pretty cold out, around -34 C in the morning, and our water pipes froze once again this winter. It has been as cold as -45 C this winter, but we realized the temperature and were smart enough to turn on the water and leave it running before anything bad happened. Well, yesterday we totally forgot. It was probably due to the fact that I woke up with a splitting headache, and spent the majority of yesterday curled up in bed napping, and that once my mom got off work, she herself ended up having a nap too. So around supper, when we're both finally up and moving around a bit, we notice we have no cold water. At all. Not even a drop.
This is normally where Gary (my moms boyfriend) comes in. Normally we've had to pull out the washing machine, go down into the cellar and stick a heater down there for hours before we've got running water again. But, Gary was off working yesterday and was going to be gone overnight, which meant mom and I had to do it ourselves. This means we would have to take the crappy door off, pull out the washer, climb over said washer, pry open a tiny door, climb down, and have someone lift the heater up and over the washer, and down into the cellar (since apparently the cellar is only made for really tall people, it's kinda missing top steps). Then, you need to try to plug the heater into the electrical socket...which is FACING THE WALL?!?! Why? I have no idea, I do not make crappy old houses that make no sense.

So, here is our laundry room. Awesome, isn't it? Please notice the insane amounts of sarcasm dripping off the word awesome, don't step in it, you might slip! Honestly, it is the most annoying laundry room, it doesn't have a proper door of any sort, and its right in the middle of the house so you can always hear it clunking and clanking away no matter which part of the house you're on. Oh, and I forgot to mention, you can only run either the washer or dryer at once, or you'll blow the breaker. You have no idea how long it takes to do laundry after every has returned from a trip.
Anyhow, in this picture, we've already taken off the door and pulled out the washer, which is a beast of a thing I might add. It's one of those smaller ones, why is it so heavy? I could barely move it an inch at a time.

So once we had the washer pulled out, my mom hopped (okay I lie, my mom does not hop. At least not over washers. She kinda, slowly crawled) over the washer and opened up the cellar door and made her way down to the cellar. Which I'm really glad for, knowing my allergies and the dust I saw down there, I would have sneezed myself silly (or stupid, perhaps). We then hoisted the heater over the washer, and down into the cellar. I was actually a bit scared at this point, because the heater is pretty heavy if you have to hold it over your head, and on those pathetic steps, it would have been easy to slip and have it land on top of you. Ouch.

I've come to the conclusion that our cellar is a dust bunny breeding ground. But why did they steal a Bounce sheet?

And then, once we finally have the heater down there, my mom shouts up that the outlet is facing the wall. Whaaaat? Who does that? Does that make any sense? I think it took her longer to plug in the heater than it took us to move the washer, which felt like it took a lot of time.

Eventually we did have our water running again ( around 4am, booyah!), but seeing as we've had to do this I think 4 times already this winter, it's starting to get really frustrating. It wouldn't be so bad if the door to the cellar wasn't in the most horrible spot, or maybe if it had an extra step on the way down or something. But oh well, what can you do with an old house like this. All in all, it was a very interesting adventure, though not one that I'd like to go on again, especially if I'm the one crawling down into the cellar next time.