Maintenance is a little difficult, but it's a small price to pay

The place I live in is very old: not just the building itself, but the interiors have aged quite a bit aside from the painted yellow living room that I showed in some earlier pictures.

I've had to do a little troubleshooting over the last few weeks, but that's to be expected for a place like this.

Water pressure is not the greatest but what was worse was the drain was plugged and the shower water wouldn't drain out of the bathtub. My first thought was to use the equivalent of Drano to dissolve the hairs and soap that might be clogging the pipes, but my colleagues at school first urged me to try working low-tech (and eco-friendly) with a plunger. And so I sucked away at the pipe and dug up grime from the pipe (which I wiped away with a paper towel, thank you), and came upon a humongous hairball which had accumulated over, who-knows-how-many months. (I wonder if the previous owner had ever had problems with the drains.)

A week or so ago my refrigerator door wouldn't close because of ice on the freezer portion and so I hacked away at the frost with the metal edge of a butter knife. I know that they don't recommend that you hack away at frost with knives or ice picks, in case you puncture the exterior and damage (read: incapacitate) the refrigerator, but I did it anyway and was able to saw off enough frost to close the door.

Both of these I realize are temporary solutions: perhaps I'll have to talk to the landlord about getting new fixtures or a newer, smaller fridge. But that's something to be negotiated further down the line, when I have time (ha! like at the end of one year!)