Ill tempered glass

Its not that life is boring, its quite the opposite.  How to find time to sit down and share the things that make up every day life.  That fine line between mundane and drama.  Hilarity and insanity.  Unhappiness and a bad day.  Some days its just hard to tell which end is up.

About two weeks ago I was innocently sleeping in my bed about 7:20 am when I was rudely awakened by what I thought at the time was an explosion.  All those years in DC coming back at me I guess.  Then after my last experience with the house in E Street, I thought maybe someone had fallen through the bathroom ceiling.  I fully expected to see someone sitting on their toilet in my bathroom.  After grabbing a shirt (its nice to know that my most basic instincts include a bit of modesty) I tip-toed to the bathroom.  There, in literally a million  pieces, was my glass shower door. There was glass everywhere.  And the weirdest part was the sound.  It sounded like water dripping which caused me no small fright.  The idea of the ceiling falling in was only reinforced at this point.  It turns out that the sound was the glass continuing to break.  Very weird.

So after freaking out, yes, I felt a good breakdown was in order at that point, I checked the internet.  Googling "shattering glass door" I was totally surprised to actually find some results.  While most of the world has never heard of this occurrence, it turns out that it does happen.  Here's what I learned.  First of all tempered glass -- like your windshield on your car -- breaks into a million pieces on purpose.  Its supposed to be less dangerous that way. Maybe so, but let me assure that this crap can still cut you.  I am so happy that I was not in the shower at the time.  Had it been a Monday or Friday -- clinic days -- that could have  been a distinct possibility.  If the glass hadn't hurt me then the fall to floor from the heart attack would  have done it! There was glass everywhere and glass slivers and dust too.  I mean ALL over the bathroom.  And this stuff is heavy.

Back to my internet searching... it seems that tempered glass can do this.  Most likely what happens is that there is microscopic damage to the glass -- often occurring during installation - which can literally take years to wind itself into the heated (tempered) core of the glass.  When that happens -- boom!  The glass shatters.

So I call the landlord.  He is very sympathetic though that turned out to be short lived.  He contacted the management company of the building (only two years old).  They decide its out of warranty and they're out of it.  The owner, realizing that puts this expensive shower door on him, decides to pass it along to me.

Given that my karma is bad lately, of course its lease renewal time.  Down here they are not big fans of the month-to-month kind of renting.  So here I am. Landlord wants to raise the rent by $100 per month and make me buy the new shower door. After emailing back and forth, we're now down to me paying for half the shower door but holding firm at the $100 per month.

So here's the question to you, my friends  -- how stubborn should I be?  Where does stubborn end and sucker start?  If I stand on principle and move out... who suffers?  how do I know how much is too much?

As I renter I just don't get how this is my responsibility.  In full disclosure, however, my lease does say that "fixtures" are the responsibility of the tenant.  Beware the fine print. I would never in life have thought that this would a) come up and b) be my responsibility.

Oy.

So I am open to all suggestions, ideas, negotiation tips and anything else you can think of.  Help me out here folks, I need you!