The weekend was neither fun nor productive in any usual sense. I worked hard, but not very smart, for about 36 hours. ‘

I did learn some things though.

… regarding the intermittent cleanwater flooding of the bathroom, from the bottom of the toilet.

It seems, after all that, that yes, the seal does need to be replaced. Eventually, so will the shutoff or faucet valve at the back of the tank, and both of those small jobs will require shutting off the water (and that means that on shutting-off day, I should probably replace the kitchen faucet too.)

But neither one of those things was really the source of the ultimate problem.

Instead, somewhere down deep, there’s a partial obstruction of wastewater exiting the house down one of the sewer lines.

The only part of the infrastructure that creates a serious problem is the clothes washer. What happens is, when it tries to expel a tub full of rinse water in a hurry and all at once, it can’t. There’s instead a lot of backpressure exerted. The shower upchucks itself, which is slightly gross though not catastrophic.

But the other weak point is that toilet seal, and that’s semi-catastrophic.

I was mopping it up with towels, and then washing the towels. In the washer.

Thus, I created an endless and problematic loop.

It was (new hypothesis) in fact clean rinsewater that was really flooding the floor, via the sketchy toilet seal.

It took me a ridiculously long time to work all this out, and to be enlightened: the very-short-term solution, I now believe, is to quit doing loads of wash on-site.

Since I quit, a few hours ago, no problems. I’m also fairly sure now that I can turn the water supply to the toilet back on (using the ancient knob carefully), and use it as per normal without further incident.

Same with the now-recleaned shower.

Midafternoon Sunday, I did some reconnaissance on the old laundromats, and cashed in the first five dollars ever of my first socsec check on quarters. If I’m willing to haul wet clothes back home to my fully functional dryer, it shouldn’t be too much fuss, should it?

Truly fixing things right will be, though, for sure.

I think I’m going to be absolutely okay with that.

Maybe at length I’ll even get a bathtub out of the ordeal.

That would be a little slice of heaven.