Of all the potential risks of coming here . . .

I never considered snakes in the pipes or exploding lightbulbs.

On two different nights in as many weeks Roomie has turned on the living room lights and been showered with the glass of an exploding bulb. And about a week ago we started to notice a horrible odor in the kitchen, but couldn't figure out what could be causing it. Roomie finally looked under the sink to find what appeared to be an unusually grotesque fungus growing out of the side of the wall. It was long, white and black, and looked sort of like a small octopus. Smelled appalling.

Like any two mature adults we promptly closed the under-sink cabinet and fled. It took about five days for the maintenance crew to show up--don't know why; it certainly wasn't for want of nagging. The first time they came S. insisted there was nothing there, so we had to nag for another week until they came back this afternoon. Evidently what we had under there was the carcass of a snake which had crawled up the pipes and died. (!?!) Well gee, that sounds kind of dangerous. The main maintenance guy was visibly alarmed and told us we should flush hot water down the pipes for several minutes every day. (I assume he means every day when the water in the kitchen actually gets hot.) He said he's going to come every Saturday and check around for us.

Does anyone know if those urban legends about crocodiles in the toilet were true?