That was how people started to make reserves of water in the kitchen, in jars and bowls for cooking, and in the bathroom, in the bathtub, in washbasins, water for washing your hands and your face. That was something that happened on a regular basis, which made washing a real problem.  (90)

You could only have hot water 2 hours in the evening and 2 hours in the morning, two times a week. Only you couldn?t call it ?hot water?, because the pressure was either very low at the top, or the water was already cold when it went up. We used to boil the water before taking a bath or a shower. I remember I had two bowls of ten liters, which I would fill with water, boil it on the stove and then pour it in the bathtub, add some cold water as well and then take my bath. As for heating, radiators were mostly cold in the winter, or at best worn down. To make ourselves somewhat comfortable, we used to put boiled water in a plastic bottle and hold it while lying in bed to keep us warm. (O. S., 120)

We would use a kettle as a showerhead. We used the kettle to take the hot water from the bowl on the stove and then pour the water on us. I had a blue one, slightly damaged. I used to stand naked in the freezing bathtub until my husband came with the bowl full of boiled water, which I poured on me with the kettle. The wall of the bathroom was full of decay. I was freezing and trying to wash myself with the water from the kettle. I would take such a bath generally once a week. (V. M., 85)

We had problems with the water supply. On the very day of the street protests in Bucharest in ?89, when people first shouted protests against Ceausescu, I wanted to give a bath to my small children but there was no water to do that. I had just gone out in the street, from Vasile Alecsandri to Pitar Mos, somehow out of curiosity, to see what happened on the streets, holding a bag full of clothes, which I wanted to take to my mother to wash them. I washed them at my mother?s, but the water supply was interrupted there too, so I took them back home with me, wet as they were; the streets were full of police and army cars, there was a horrible atmosphere, I took the main street so that I could see better, but there were cars every two meters. (C. M., 52)

How can I possibly forget? Poor Gicu was still alive and our doughtier was small. I was a shop assistant in a bakery and he was a trolley driver. One day somebody told me that they would start coming into people?s homes and check your wealth. We were so frightened! I only had an hour or two! I called you and asked you to hide the three fur coats we had and my husband?s leather jackets and some other things that were worth something. I told you I was a shop assistant, so we were fine. Both you and the lady agreed to keep our things for as long as necessary. They came but nobody in the block found our what happened. It?s a blessing to have good neighbors like you, a pity that you moved. (V. M., 66)