Plumbling for a Scapegoat

The water heaters here are different than the tanked water heaters I was accustomed to in the United States. They are more on-demand, and in pulls a lot of amperage to use. Not all homes come with them, and they end up being installed after the fact in existing households. 

Listen to the soundtrack while you read 🎧

I keep forgetting the neglect

Sometimes I forget how little effort La Llorona and her family put into the upkeep of this property. And the crumbling facade it represents, as well as its status as my current home, serves as a weird juxtaposition of jail/cage and humble abode. How my mother reluctantly invests in the property always comes back to bite us in the ass, in particular me because now it is just me living here. 

For all those years that her sisters lived here, they clearly didn’t take care of the place at all either. Like zero effort was put in. It’s a topic my mother talked about ad nauseam when she was here. She clearly feels some kind of way about that. It is possible that the living condition of the original part of the house is better, the downstairs portion, where the tenant lives, but I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know. Everything upstairs, where I currently live, is what was built when I was little, and was left unfinished for several reasons. Which meant that the years in between, where no one was here, the house sat, in some state of disrepair, untended, for over a decade.

Pattern recognition

When I came back with La Llorona in 2020, we had to replace the heater; who knows how old it was and how long it had been since it had been used. I don’t know how often this kind of heater has to be replaced, but it seems they aren’t made to last forever. When we arrived, there was only cold water in the shower. Not what you want to deal with in October weather. I don’t know why my mother waited so long to call the plumber, but the first several days we were taking old-school baths with water that had been heated on the stove. I think that year I was just happy to be back in Guatemala, and I was willing to put up with a lot of hardships simply because. 

When the plumber arrived that time to repair the hot water situation, I wasn’t too interested in what was going on; La Llorona was doing the most to get in the man’s way, asking a lot of questions, and literally watching them work, scrutinizing every move they made. The only thing I remember from that incident is that the fuse was not replaced. 

Between 2020 and when I returned to Guatemala in 2025, no one was living here full time. La Llorona returned sporadically, but only for a few months at a time here and there. The last time she was in Guatemala before I arrived was in June of 2025. I do not know the condition of the heater in the shower, or even if the fuse had given her problems. All I know is that when I arrived in late October, she had many suspicions that a neighbor, or the tenant, or both, were colluding to destroy the property for some nefarious reason that was too nebulous to name. 

I was disappointed, but not surprised, when shortly after our arrival we discovered that the hot water heater was once again on the fritz. The timing was deja vu, as five years prior we were calling the same plumber to come to the house and diagnose the problem. 

She had already been ranting as soon as we got in the house that the tenant was trying to mess up the house on purpose. That every time she came to Guatemala she had a problem with him, and in the same breath she would say that he was super accommodating about the water bill (a story for another time that is equally deserving of a deep dive) and that she really needed to get a hold of him to give him some money she supposedly owed him.

On the hunt for a scapegoat

She was mad that when we arrived, the one that was here, that I know was the same one that got installed in 2020, wasn’t working. She insisted that we had been sabotaged. That someone (despite the house not showing signs of having been broken in) had come inside and purposely damaged it. She maintains these ludicrous fantasies that the world at large wants to take away what she has and goes to great lengths to enact its evil plan on her and her stuff.

When the plumber arrived, La Llorona was already on edge. This was not long after her meltdown during the installation of my home internet connection. I was only interested in keeping the plumber focused on solving the problem, and my mother focused on minding her own fucking business so the guy could do his job. But that was an impossible task, and I was unsuccessful in taking her away from the bathroom/kitchen area.

The malevolence practically oozed off of her, and she argued with the man about the necessity of changing the unit. He tried to explain that it was bad and needed to be replaced. He explained, after asking us some questions, that in order for it to work properly, the valve for the water coming from the reservoir on the roof had to be open always, and that the fuse should not be up if the tinaco was closed. 

This was new information for me, and for her, apparently. I asked if it was bad to operate the heater with the tinaco closed. He said yes, that it would potentially burn it up. Hmmm, seems like that already happened. I don’t know if the tinaco situation caused the 2020 or the 2025 failure. I mean it could have because my mother clearly didn’t know that not having it open could be an issue. And I don’t know what she did when she was in this house on her own.

Time has no meaning to La Llorona

My mother, insistent that the water heater had only just been replaced (apparently 5 years ago is recently to her), got pissed off at the cost to replace the unit. Her anger was disproportionate to the situation. I mean, unexpected expenses have a way of putting anyone on edge, but still. The plumber was not jacking up the price to fleece her specifically. But there was no talking her off the ledge. 

I didn’t get into it with her, especially not when the price was very similar to the cost of the unit five years prior. No amount of having her review the receipt from back then would shut her up. So out of spite, even though they probably recommended it, she did not replace the fuse. I had a sneaky suspicion that the fuse should have been replaced, but there is no arguing with La Llorona when she gets into this mindset that people are out to get her. 

I mean, we had hot water again after it was replaced, so it obviously had gone bad. But after the repair, the water heater fuse would trip after taking a long shower. There is nothing more unsettling than having shampoo in your hair and feeling the hot water turn instantly cold when the fuse tripped. Especially not during the cold months. 

But I lived like that for the last nine months, taking showers and knowing that the fuse would trip at random times. At first we thought it was an overloaded circuit. I mean, the house and the wiring are older. Maybe it can’t handle doing two things at once? So my son and I got into a routine. If the other was awake, we would let each other know if we were going to take a shower. So don’t run the kettle or the microwave at the same time. And be on standby in case the fuse trips. If the other was asleep, then the shower would have to be fast because once the fuse tripped, there was no one to save you. That’s how it was. And that’s how we lived. 

Events take a dark turn

Until today, I had to call the plumber to come check out the water heater because two nights ago, we noticed that there was no more hot water coming out. All I wanted after being sick for three days with an unfortunate bout of food poisoning was a hot shower. And there was no hot water to be had. Bummer. So of course, I had to tell my mother about it. I told her a day ago I was going to call the plumber and then let her know what came of it, and if anything needed to be replaced. The heater itself was still under warranty. At best, it would be covered. But what I suspected, and knew was probably the actual problem, was the fuse. 

I called the number on my invoice from October and was surprised when they said they would be available to check out the situation the same day. I was even more surprised when they showed up only an hour after I had called the number. I showed the plumber the problem, and then I mentioned that the fuse was giving us issues, and I didn’t know it was related. I described how we had been living, and his eyes practically bugged out of his head. 

Apparently, I have either data dumped all the electrical training I received when I was in the Navy. Or I was really good at avoiding the truth because I didn’t want to deal with my mother’s potential reaction. Spoiler alert: It was the fuse. And the fact that it was tripping every time we took a shower for a long time (and it also got hot to the touch) was it was warning of the failure of the fuse due to being overloaded, and I should not have ignored it. However, I refuse to shoulder the blame for the situation entirely because, as my mother loves to remind me, this is her house, and nothing happens here that she doesn’t have to approve first. So fuck you, mother. Your negligence almost caused a house fire. 

When the plumber took a look and showed me the fuse, he was happy that it had done its job, but it was clear that it had been systematically overworked for the last five years at least – I can’t verify how long that fuse had been there, or that it was overloaded. I can only guarantee the last five years because I know the model water heater that was in place was the same model as the one five years ago.

Woulda Coulda Shoulda

He also showed me that the fuse that was there should have been replaced; it was undersized for the amperage the water heater was pulling during use. With his voltmeter, he showed me the circuit was pulling 38A on a 30A fuse. What in the fucking hell. So he replaced the whole thing. I got a new box and a 50A fuse for the circuit and new wiring. Yes, the wiring inside the electrical panel had been cooked by this situation. We are so fucking lucky there wasn’t a fire. This could have been a serious electrical fire situation. Burnt cable housing. He told me he was going to change the wiring in the panel to cable suited to the higher voltage running through it. No wonder the whole thing was getting hot. Shit like this pisses me off. This could have been prevented.

Granted, “nothing” happened, but it could have. And that is how things always go with her and her attitude to life. If it turns out fine, it proves her right. That her suspicions and assumptions are correct. If something turns out badly, it proves her assumptions of sabotage correct. But never at any point does she assume any of the blame is hers, or that the bad outcome could have been prevented through her own actions. She is incapable of any self-reflection, and that lack has cost me more than it has cost her. She is incapable of accepting any blame for any situation she causes and always has to find someone else to blame. 

Lesson learned: I will not ignore things that feel off. It was a gut check moment, and I am a little salty with myself, but I’ll get over it. I am more salty at my mother for her general negligence and mistrust, placing me and my son in a hazardous situation without our knowledge. I mean, had the fuse failed, there could have been a fire. It would have endangered my son and me, and my cats. That’s not fair to any of us.