Sunday, December 08, 2013

The Leak

I was playing some Xbox. Lydia was asleep. I heard this muffled water sound while playing, but I figured it was the guy in the apartment above taking a shower. Maybe it just lasted too long, but for whatever reason I went to investigate. There was a sort of rainforest shower happening in our bathroom, with water pouring out of the ceiling in a few different places. Uh oh.





So I woke Lydia and we called the emergency landlord number. No answer. We called the water company but they wouldn’t shut off the water because the account was in the landlord’s name, not ours. I went to the guy upstairs’ door several times and pounded the crap out of it. No answer. Ok.


The problem escalated when the water started dripping in the adjacent room.



Well, maybe I could shut the water off myself somehow in the basement? I went down and… oh no. All the water that was draining from our bathroom was now running all over the things we had in storage directly below. Had to yell for Lydia again and we both moved everything out of the way of the waterfall.


Electric shock would have really been insult to injury at this point, so I tried to stay away from the water drenched appliance situation.



The landlord or whoever he was finally arrived and shut the water off. He keyed into the guy upstairs’ room and found him fast asleep. A pipe had burst in the guy’s toilet and he apparently hadn’t noticed. The landlord said he couldn’t wake the guy even standing right next to him. We think drugs. Moving on.

Well we got the water to stop, but now we had to deal with the aftermath. We soaked up all the standing water with paper towels and set a fan up to dry it out before we got any delightful mold. A new problem had arisen. All of that water pouring in to the basement had also been drenching our furnace. Better turn that off. In the middle of winter. So we had to sleep somewhere else for the night.

We eventually got the heat turned back on, and the bathroom sink unclogged of the ceiling crap it was full with, and figured that was the end of it. There was a hilarious conclusion though. One day we found a note from the handyman stating that “We have just received notice of exceptionally high water usage in your apartment building. To reduce this waste we have checked the washers on your toilet and all water faucets and repaired or replaced them as needed. If you find any of these items leaking in the future, please call the office immediately.” Yes, thank god you checked if we had a leaky faucet. That is likely the cause of the high water bill. Case closed.


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