Dr. K’s Caregiver Chronicles
The Reluctant Caregiver Tackles a Toilet
Plumbers vs Academics (Academics Win)
I’m proud of myself.
My parents’ house was new in the 60s, but is now falling apart. During rehab among other veterans at the VA after surgery for bleeding on the brain, Dad professed his desire to die rather than leave his home for assisted living. So, I left my tenured professorship and stepped up as primary caregiver. As my prior “Reluctant Caregiver” essay noted, taking care of a 95-year-old Vietnam War paratrooper is a lot.
I do have daytime help four days a week, but the meds, scheduling appointments, doctor’s visits, groceries, bills, electricians, lawn care, dealing with the police when hired caregivers get into the bank accounts and steal money — all while trying to eke out some life of my own as a freelance writer and musician — keep me busier than I’d like with no full-time salary coming in. Plus, my life requires pretty much all those things as well, so I’m living for two.
But now the house is really causing issues: animal control to get groundhogs to stop digging under the shed; cable folks to replace the antiquated Wi-Fi server equipment; animal control again, to get rid of the feral cat that got in the crawl space and had the nerve to die there; a year later, pest control to bomb the crawl space so the plumbers wouldn’t be destroyed by fleas.
Although we’re loyal customers of a local plumbing company with a sexist logo, they keep adding fees. The newest is a 3% add-on if you use anything other than cash. With the latest charge being $1733.18, that would add $52 to the bill. And all this is because Dad gets embarrassed when he soils his Depends and tries to flush them. Once I got him to stop that, he started flushing the Cottonelle wipes. Tons of them.
Pro-tip: they say they’re flushable, but for older systems, they just aren’t.
Then, on top of that, the downstairs toilet has started running constantly. It hisses as if it has an eons-long grudge going on. I’ve had to turn off the water each night to keep it from driving us crazy.
As a YouTube aficionado who has successfully used the platform’s videos to tile a laundry room floor, insert a bathroom GFCI electrical outlet, install a kitchen backsplash, and replace the thermostat for my HVAC system, I knew enough to recognize that it was likely an easy fix. The YouTube diagnostic videos proved that. The plumber wanted to charge $250 for less than ten minutes work, no tools required.
Dad has the money, but I balked. “That’s too much,” I blurted. “I’ll handle it.” I’d already been going to his ATM daily to get the $500 max so I could pay in cash. I had to go back when I spent $175 for the flea control guy. I convinced myself this toilet fix wasn’t rocket science and I was right.
People like to make fun of academics, but solid research training teaches you to figure things out, even if they seem to be outside your specialty.
FYI: On the surface, toilet fill valves are way outside Italian renaissance dance manuscripts, but both require moving from instructions to workable performance, so there’s that.
After diagnosing the problem, I watched several videos on the same topic: replacing the fill valve. For the blissfully unaware (I used to be one of you), the fill valve controls water levels in filling and refilling the toilet tank. There’s a “float” (the black cylinder mid-picture) which used to be a hand-sized rubber ball that floated as the tank refilled.
I always watch more than one video for a task because every one stresses at least one important point that others leave out. One, for example, noted that the water line connector and lock nut loosen clockwise. Since most people are used to “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey” mantra this is important. Another stressed that these two connectors are “hand-tighten only.” Yet another explains the reason: the connectors are plastic, so wrenches might break them.
This video below is my fave. It’s straightforward, clear, and the camera shows everything you really needed to see. It could have been improved in two ways, though: list all the items you would need at the beginning (towels or small bucket, towel or wet vac, pencil, Fluidmaster 400A) and specify the turn directions. You can see this last via the camera, but as I said, these things go opposite, so saying it would be a nice touch.
Earlier in the week, I bought the new fill valve at Lowe’s, watched the video a few more times, then this Sunday morning, I perched my laptop on the sink and got to work. Stopping at each step, I followed every direction to the letter, adjusting the float and fill valve height. Holding my breath as the toilet flushed, I almost hollered “hallelujah!” when the refilling water stopped at the right time and place.
Then, flipping the cosmic bird to the greedy plumbers, I thought, “with my complete lack of experience or training, moving at an arthritic snail’s pace, this music professor replaced this part in less than twenty minutes. I learned something new (one of my favorite hobbies) and saved Dad $250.”
I’m proud of myself.
Wait! Is that a sound in the upstairs toilet?
