A Leaky Roof

A line of reasoning may make sense to you until you try to use it in a different situation. Here’s an example:

You live in a condominium along with several others, and you all have the same roof over your heads. You notice from time to time as you gaze up while entering the building that the roof looks a little shabby and mention it to others occasionally as you chance to meet them. But since you and they both know it would involve effort and expense, you tend to ignore it and get on with your life. But then you wake up one morning to a drop of water splashing on your forehead and you know something needs to be done. So after putting a pail of water under the leak, you knock on your neighbor’s door.

“Good morning, neighbor,” you say. “I know we’ve discussed the poor shape of the roof before but it’s suddenly become a problem and we need to do something about it.”

“Roofs are the problem, not the solution,” says your neighbor, irritably. In the background you hear the television turned up loudly as an angry voice speaks.

You are quite dumbfounded and ask him to clarify himself. “If we didn’t have roofs, we wouldn’t have leaks," he says.

“But we need a roof,” you protest.

“If we didn’t have a roof it wouldn’t rain. And if it did rain, well, the humidifier isn’t working either, not that I believe in humidifiers. If we didn’t have a roof the sun would warm us and the rain would provide the perfect amount of water in the atmosphere. Roofs interfere with the natural order of things.”

Needing to solve the roof problem before the bucket overflows and soaks your bed, you attempt another approach. “That may well be true, neighbor, but the existing roof has served us quite well for a good amount of time now and I don’t think it prudent for us to take drastic measures such as removing the roof but should instead repair what has worked for so long.”

“Once you get a roof you involve a bunch of people profiting off of it," says your neighbor. "The last people who installed the roof went over-budget and sold us a roof that was over-designed.”

You don’t disagree, remembering that one of the condo owners had talked all of you into using his brother-in-law’s company to do the job and had slipped in a lot of extra conditions into the contract that ended up making the cost far more than was expected or, indeed, necessary.

“Oh, for sure, we shouldn’t use the same people as we did the last time. In fact, I suggest we make sure we hire an entirely new group of people and investigate them thoroughly before permitting them to do the job.”

But you get nowhere with your neighbor, who hadn’t yet felt the effects of the leaky roof, or else blamed it instead on the innate leakiness of roofs. So you go away, hoping to find a neighbor with a little more common sense.

You knock on the next door and hear a swish swish of fabric as the tenant approaches his door. He opens it and you see the man in front of you dressed in rain gear from head to toe. With his yellow cap, his yellow jacket, and black rubber boots, he reminds you of nothing so much as the Gorton Fisherman. Behind a salt and pepper beard, a broad friendly smile beams back at you.

“Nice to see you, neighbor, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I was going to inform you of the fact that the roof was leaking, but I can see you are already aware of it.” As you gaze into his condo unit, you can see the roof is covered in heavy plastic and a complex system of gutters has been erected in order to re-route the water that was coming through the roof in steady streams. The whole system, you can’t help thinking, is ingeniously designed, a series of gutters that divert the water to pour out the window. And yet you can’t help thinking the whole system could have been avoided if he had alerted the rest of the tenants to the fact the roof was leaking.

“Ah, yes, the leaking roof. As you can see, I am a self-sufficient man who is able to find solutions to his own problems. I do not require a roof. In fact, I think roofs make us lazy and unaccountable for our own actions. In an ideal world, everyone would be responsible for constructing his own roof, as I have done. This, my good neighbor, is the key to happiness. You have the right to choose whether or not you want to have a roof over your head, and no committee should force you to have any roof that is not your desired roof.”

“But I’m not all that particular about what kind of roof I have over my head, provided it does not leak,” you tell the genial fellow in the rain gear.

“But you do not have a right to a dripless roof over your head,” he said, still cheerfully but a little paternally. “I fail to see why I should be forced to pay to fix the leak in your apartment when it does not affect me. That is socialism.”

“But the roof is leaking in your apartment as well,” you say, incredulously. “A new roof would solve both our problems, and with far less effort and—most likely—expense than what it required you to set up your own system.”

“Ah, but I reserve my freedom to have or not have a roof according to my own desire, and not on the whims and demands of my neighbors.”

He offers to share with you his plans for constructing a sub-roof system, even going as far as offering to lend you tools and help in the installation, but you demur. Surely there would be someone in the building who would see the need to repair a roof that would soon result in flooding and water damage for all. As bad as your drip is, you are able to see that it is far worse in other parts of the building.

In desperation, you remember a fellow condo owner you used to discuss condo business with. You remember her as being fair and open-minded about matters that concerned the whole. You knock on her door to find her in quite a degree of distress, though you do not see any sign of leaks or water damage.

You tell her about the leak in your apartment and she is eager to speak about the deplorable state of the roof. “Oh dear, oh dear,” she cries, almost hysterically.

“So you agree that the leaking roof is a problem?,” you ask, almost doubting that at last you have found a level-headed person who will assist you in finding a solution.

“A problem? No, it is a disaster,” she cries, and starts to hyperventilate at the mere thought of it.

“Well, yes, it is rather bad, isn’t it?” you say. And then, seeing the desperate state of mind of your neighbor, you attempt to console her by adding, “But we can take care of this situation if we just roll up our sleeves and get to work. Nothing we can’t solve once we put our minds to it and work shoulder to shoulder, eh?”

“Oh, I’ve already got the ball rolling,” says your neighbor, momentarily catching her breath. “I’ve called the roof company and they are on top of the situation.”

“Surely not the same roofing company who installed the roof we have now?” you ask. “I mean, they are the ones to blame for the situation we’re in now, aren’t they?”

“No,” she says, revealing a degree of hatred I would not have imagined her capable of. “It’s those damned kids throwing rocks at the roof who are responsible.”

“Kids throwing rocks?” you ask doubtfully. For you have seen no young ruffians in the neighborhood, nor any rocks, nor any damage on the roof that appeared as though it had been caused by rocks.

“Yes, those little bastards with rocks who have made a shambles of our roof!” Again, the glint of anger in her eyes shocks you, as though she was capable of great violence against any kid with a rock she might come upon.

You are almost afraid to say anything, such is the look in her eye, and the passion in her voice which causes it to tremble with rage. Nevertheless, you feel compelled to say what seems to be obvious to you.

“To be fair, the roof never looked too healthy,” you say sheepishly. Ignoring her rising wrath, you continue: “In fact, for a long time now I’ve noticed how shoddy it was looking. If you’ll recall, we actually had a discussion about it not a year ago, at which time you were in complete agreement with me. Why, you yourself complained about the untrustworthiness of the company that—

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she cries, cutting you off.

“One of who?”

“The roof company told me the kids with rocks had a lot of people working for them.”

“What kids with rocks?” you ask. For in truth, you have seen no kids with rocks, though you don’t dismiss the possibility that they exist or that they had in fact thrown rocks at the roof. You just don’t require a “kids with rocks” hypothesis to explain why the roof was in the condition it was. In fact, you view it as very suspicious that the roof company would be so certain that kids with rocks were responsible for the condition of the roof. If you were a disreputable roofing company—you think—a “kids with rocks” story would be a great way to avoid taking responsibility for your own shoddy work.

Innocently lost in conjecture about how the whole “kids with rocks” story didn’t seem to add up, you happen to look into the eyes of your neighbor and find there none of the questioning that was going on in your own mind. In fact, you see a certainty there that defies logic. You see a certainty that can be seen in the eyes of a true believer, the kind of certainty that shuts down minds and gives justification to the most irrational and violent of acts. People who blow up buildings have such a look in their eyes. It scares you.

So you go back to your apartment, feeling utterly alone and helpless, cut off from neighbors who are united by a common problem but unable to find any kind of common sense solution. You are tempted to sell your share in the building, but are already in debt more than you can ever hope to get for a unit with a leaky roof and weird neighbors. You listen to the drip, drip, drip, and cannot help but notice its tempo is increasing. You haven’t looked in the basement yet but fear it is already underwater. Drip. Drip.