Turn off your tanks. Turn off your tanks

There are so many things that my parents have told me as I was growing up that are turning out to be true.

A few of them are easy.

• knowing how to speak my parent's language
  
• knowing how to play an instrument
  
• Save at least 10% of what you make
  
• Don't live off of credit cards
  
• Only use them (credit cards) when you have the money or for an Emergency
  

One of them that I really didn't understand and thought "oh yeah, that's going to happen"

Turn off the toilet at the tank if you're going to be gone for more than a weekend

My parents at one time owned some condo units that they rented out to people. They were located in the Greenspoint area when it was known as the Guns-point area. My image of them was always as units that weren't exactly befitting Posh Spice.

The plastic or rubber on some of the toilet mechanisms wore out, and the tank started filling up and up and up. Faster than it's drain would drain, the water went up and up and up. Soon the water was going over and over and over.

Carpet 1 and walls ruined.


Turn the clock a few years forward to just recently.


A friend of mine owns a place in Austin.


Now I'm not sure how this happened. But the side of the tank developed a crack. It apparently wasn't at a corner, wasn't where the bolts go to hold it down, and wasn't in an area where someone could back up and hit it. It just cracked.

Only this time, it went beyond the carpet and walls being ruined. It got to the point where fungi were growing in the carpet.


No good can come of this.


I'm turning my toilet tanks off if I even think about leaving the house overnight now.