Fun times with home ownership!
Yesterday, the guys mowing our lawn thought that they hit a gas line. So, in order to make sure everything was safe, they shut off the gas. Turns out everything was ok, so they turned it on again.

The only problem? The pilot light for our hot water heater went out. So, no hot water when I tried to shower this morning. Victor decided to take a look at the heater to see if he could fix it. Our hot water heater is in the attic, which is just kind of a crawl space, filled with old pipes, scary old electrical stuff (we are having an electrician come to fix all of that already), and other junk. It's also extremely hot up there. Anyway, Victor headed up there with a flashlight. I sat down with a magazine in the library to wait for him to relight the pilot.

I was merrily reading about the new shoes for summer or some other crap when I heard a horrible noise coming from the attic. Like tons of stuff crashing down everywhere. I yelled to find out if Victor was OK, and he said he was. So I went into the bedroom, thinking I'd go out in the hallway and look up into the attic. But I stopped, because there was a huge, gaping hole in our ceiling, and sheetrock, dirt, and other debris all over the floor. Victor had accidentally stepped on the sheetrock part of the ceiling and his entire leg had come right through. Oops.

Victor came down from the attic, insisting he wasn't hurt, and we called a handyman. He came over right away and said he could fix the hole in the ceiling tomorrow. We mentioned the pilot light, hoping he would offer to go look at it, but he didn't. So, after he left, we patched up the hole using some plastic left over from our dry cleaning.



We called my parents, and they told us how to check and light the pilot light. We decided to go get a headlamp (you know, like miners wear!) for Victor to use, since trying to navigate the attic with a flashlight was tough. Plus we wanted to get one of those super long lighters to use on the pilot light.

Before we left, he mentioned his leg was hurting, so I took a look.



There was a horrible spot right beneath his butt where he had really scraped himself up. I guess that's where he caught himself when he fell through. The skin wasn't really broken much, but there was already a ton of bruising under the skin. Yuck! We got some spray-on pain reliever for him while we were out getting his headlamp.

We tried all afternoon, but we never got the pilot light lit. Apparently, we have some kind of super safe water heater, and you can't even get to the pilot light with a match or lighter. It has an igniter that you push, but even though it makes a spark, the light doesn't come on. We called the gas company, and they sent a dude to see if there was a problem with the gas. Nope. Plenty of gas is getting to the heater. We tried calling the manufacturer... they close early on Sunday. We even called the previous owner of the house, and he had no idea what to do either. They never had a problem with the pilot light, and, like us, he's kind of scared to do anything with gas and flames.

We're still not sure what to do. We took cold showers tonight, but that felt OK because we spent some time working in the yard first, and we were hot and itchy, not to mention stinky from working in the hot attic. I guess we'll get some plumber/handyman recommendations tomorrow, and maybe try to call the manufacturer again.

I really wish I had seen Victor's long leg crash through the ceiling. I keep thinking about it, and the way I picture it is hilarious. We're so glad that he didn't get hurt bad, and that he didn't fall all the way through the ceiling. Even he is able to laugh about it now, although he's in quite a bit of pain.

Obviously, we are not qualified to own a home!