I Hate My Chinese Shower!

When we first moved into the apartment, I must admit I didn't love it.  It's big enough, our bed is pretty good, and there is a nice view.  I can't say much for the kitchen.  I don't particularly like it, but it doesn't repel me. The bathroom, however, is another story.

Actually, there are two bathrooms. A large one and a small one.  They both contain "showers" however the small one has no hot water in the shower so, when they showed it to us they said, "Don't use that one."

Judging from the water damage to the floor outside the smaller bathroom, I suspect it is because it doesn't drain properly.  I have no desire to find out though and have never tested my theory.  Especially since the smaller bathroom is mine.  Matt agreed to take the larger one.  Each bathroom only has one small pedestal sink so there is no where to put anything so it makes sense to split up the bathrooms.

In addition to the sink, there is a western style toilet and a hand held shower nozzle that also attaches to the wall.  There is no shower curtain or doors.  It is basically RV style.  Now in an RV, I am grateful to simply have any shower at all.  In my home, however, this bugs the crap out of me.

I must admit, when I saw the shower, I was really surprised and not in a good way.  I didn't decide that I actually "hated" the aforementioned shower until I had used it.  The water just basically pours out all over the floor and spreads all the way to the sink and behind the toilet and just everywhere!  It doesn't quite make it to the door, but it just pools up and sits there and doesn't dry.  If you came in later to use the toilet, it would still be wet and you would be walking in puddles of water.  I just couldn't seem to understand this concept so I went on Yahoo Answers to see how other people were dealing with this problem.

A few people had already asked the question of what to do and most of the people who responded obviously had no clue what a Chinese shower looks like because they all kept telling them to put down big fluffy floor rugs or to hang a shower curtain.  (Floor rugs would just get soaking wet and a shower curtain would do nothing because there are no barriers on the floor to keep the water contained.  Also, some of the water goes down the drain but the floor is definitely not tilted for drainage, in fact I think its just the opposite.

My Chinese Shower

Two drains yet still doesn't drain properly.

I suppose from the two pictures it just looks a bit weird and not really that much of a problem but I am telling you, I hate it!!  I was trying to google how others deal with their Chinese showers and the first thing that came up was the Urban Dictionary definition.  I am definitely NOT talking about that kind of a Chinese shower.

Eventually we figured out to remove one of the drain covers or it would just overflow.  I also bought a long handled squeegee and after every shower we have to squeegee the floor.  It goes a little something like this:

It is so annoying.  Gone are the days of just quickly rinsing off.  It takes forever for the water to heat up and while the water is running it is just flooding the floor. You absolutely have to squeegee every time.  I have taken up an every other day shower schedule and to be perfectly honest, if I can push it another day I do. Also, I try and make sure that I go for a run just before I shower so that I can wait longer until the next shower encounter.  I tell myself that all anyone really needs is a brisk whores bath in the morning. I'm not so sure that's true, but that is how much I really hate my Chinese shower.