Water Leaks

Oh boy.  So, last weekend I get up at 6Am to feed the cats and then I go into the bathroom.  I'm sitting there quietly waking up and become aware of this weird noise. What is that?  I assume it's the insane neighbor above us doing some weird ritual.  But no, it is too rhythmic.  I put my ear to the wall and what do I hear?   NO!!!  Water is dripping inside our wall.  Crap.  This can't be good.

It's even worse because two days before the manager showed up at our door with a plumber and informs me that they have to cut yet another hole in our walls. This one behind the washer.  Now, if you come here often, you will recall the disaster of the air conditioning and the hole in the wall of our master bath.  :(

The saddest part of this is I have decided to lay off the wine for a while so not only have I not had any for weeks, I don't have any in the house.  This is NOT good.  There is a REASON for wine. This is the reason.

Naturally, I want to throttle the manager and ask what is the trouble.  Well, it appears water is leaking in mass quantities into the party room which is directly below our unit.  So, they have to peer into our walls to find what is causing the problem.  Big sigh....  Ok.  The snotty plumber comes in and cuts the hole then informs me that the water is coming from somewhere above our unit.  Exactly like the a/c fiasco.

Ok, now I have a hole in the wall.  Of course the building is responsible for fixing it.  So, I'm not waiting for the manager, who is NOT my favorite person, to call the hole fixer so *I* go call him.  His name is Mike.  His son is Nick.  Mike and Nick have a handyman company.  Mike is the brother of Pat, my air conditioning guy.  More on this later.  :D  Pat and Mike.  Don't cha love it?

So, Mike says he and Nick will come on Monday.  Ok, that's fine as Snotty Plumber has blue taped the piece of dry wall back over the hole. With MY blue tape.  Naturally, he didn't come equipped to fix the mess he made.  Jeez.

Ok, in a way I am glad this happened as there has always been this weird smell near our washer/dryer.  Now I know what caused it and it will go away once the leak is stopped.  Am I optimistic, or what?

So, now that you know I already have a hole in the wall, you can just imagine what I am thinking, right?  They are going to want to come chop holes in our bathroom walls.  Over my dead body.  We JUST remodeled the master bath and had the guest bath done a couple years ago.  Anyway, it is now 6:20Am and nobody is around.

I go to the computer to wait until 7AM when our maintenance guy comes on duty.     While I am reading emails I hear this noise.  I think it's the cats.  Nope, they are both asleep.  WTF is that NOISE!?  Holy crap!  There is water leaking into the master bedroom right through the concrete ceiling!  Then I look at the new wall Charlie just built for us and water is soaking through it!  Holy shit.

I go racing out to the lobby where I see Patrick, Mr Maintenance, arriving on his bicycle.   I nab him as he walks in the door.  Poor guy doesn't even have time to breathe and there I am.  He says he'll "take care of it".  Ok.  An hour later water is still dripping.  I go back to the lobby where I find the manager and beard him in his den.  So, what's going on, I query.

Turns out that the old woman in the 3rd floor unit who died several months ago, left the condo vacant.  It's been sitting there empty for months and a pipe burst.  Totally flooded that unit and the neighbors upstairs.  What we got was the extra.  Right through 7 inches of concrete.  Can you just imagine the mess upstairs?  Oiks.  Finally, after hours of the water being turned off, the dripping stops.  We go out to coffee.

The manager has called this company who does water clean up after disasters.  This kid named Shareef shows up.  Oh boy.  Shareef tells me that the "cure" to wet dry wall is this: they drag in this behemoth very noisy machine and drill a bunch of holes in the walls.  NOOOOO!  and then stick the behemoth's tentacles into all the holes where it will blow super heated air into the walls.  Turns out it will drive the temperature up over 95 degrees and this has to be done for...FIVE DAYS!  Go away, Shareef.

After I restrain myself from murdering poor innocent Shareef ( who has the most perfect teeth I have ever seen), I calm myself enough to ask him what about our cats.  Nope, cats gotta go.  Now, you all know Ipo.  Can you just imagine me boarding that insane cat?  Not happening.  She needs a frontal lobotomy at the best of times.  At the worst of times she gets bladder infections.  Picture me with the temperature over 95 degrees, tons of noise, water everywhere, flaking drywall and a cat peeing everywhere but in her litter box.  Not pretty.  Not happening.

So I ask Shareef if the upstairs idiot ( who I am convinced is a North Korean spy) is going to have him do the noise/heat thing as that upstairs guy had more than 20 gallons of flooding in his unit.  Shareef doesn't know.  I figure if he's doing it then it will dry up the water in our ceiling as our ceiling is his floor... mostly.

So, the next day the realtor for the estate of the the woman who died comes knocking.  She is going to take pictures of the damage.  Ok, she is darling and tells us that the family on the mainland has given her permission to tell us that no matter what, they will pay for damage.  Isn't that nice?  Does your heart good to know there are still honest responsible people left.

So, the upshot is that I doubt there will be any damage that I can't fix.  I called Charlie to ask about his wall that he built but he said he doesn't think there'll be any problem.  This is good.

So, now it's Monday and Mike and Nick show up.  They are determined to fix everything that can be fixed.  They get to work.

You remember that I told you Mike is the brother of my a/c guy Pat, right?  Well, a few months ago I looked at our a/c cover and saw it was covered with rust.  So, I called Pat who tells me he uses this company that can strip the cover down to the bare metal, acid the rust off, sand and "powder coat" so it will never get rust again.  Goody.  Just what we need.

Pat's guy comes and takes the cover away.  While he is here I have him clean the dryer venting system.  We are now about $650.00 poorer.  But, worth it.  If that cover will never rust again, I'm a happy girl.  So, I tell Pat that I want to paint the cover myself as I have faux painted our walls and will do the same thing to the cover.  I don't want a final coat on it,  just a base coat.  You know what's coming, right?

Pat tells me it will be about 6-8 days.  Three weeks later he brings the cover back and it looks like a refrigerator from 1956.  It is so shiny I am blinded.  I say, Pat, what is this?  I can't paint on this.  He has forgotten to tell the a/c cover dipper not to paint it.  Away it goes again.  Three more weeks go my and two guys bring it back.  But, it won't stay on the wall.  So, they fight with it and hammer and screwdriver and generally make a mess.  During all this they wreck the coating in about 5 places.  The entire of idea is that the coating will prevent moisture for getting to the metal thus preventing rust.  Now they have scratched it right down to the bare metal.  I call Pat.  I am pissed.  Away the cover goes again.

So, more weeks go by and I finally call Pat and say, ok, it is now 3 full months.  bring back my cover and do it now.  He just happens to have it so back it comes. It is base painted battle ship gray.  Lovely.  :(  But.... Pat can't get the screws to work either as they have coated the screws.  WHAT is the matter with everyone?  Coating screws is not too smart.  Ok, Pat messes around for about an hour and he finally gets it to stay on the wall.  Pat leaves.

Enter brother Mike and Nick.  They are done with the preliminary hole fixing but have to come back tomorrow to finish.  Meanwhile, Nick looks at the a/c cover and says, Look, Maureen, this is about to fall off.  Crap.  So, the intrepid duo remove the cover and decide they will fix it.  Oh no.  I tell them to have at is BUT, they simply can not damage the coating.  They have as much trouble as brother Pat did.  Sigh...............

Now, I can see the glint of sibling rivalry in Mike's eyes so I let him go.  They decide that they will go to the hardware store and get what they think will work and they'll be back the next morning.  Dandy.

Bright and early they show up all excited because they have what they think will work.  They spend an hour messing around being VERY careful not to damage the coating.  Nick is a marvel.  He fixes it.  I tell Mike I am going to tell Pat that his nephew and brother fixed the cover.  He laughs and tells me Pat won't like that.  I say good.  :)

Now, here's the best part... Mike and Nick don't charge me!  All they wanted was the few dollars for the materials they bought.  All I had was ten dollars so I gave it to them and told them to buy lunch.  Such a magnanimous girl, is I.  ;)

Mike then orders some jewelry for his wife and I order a custom made earring display from Nick.  It is a mutual admiration society.  :D

They leave, my wall looks great, there is no smell in the washer area, no water is dripping anywhere it shouldn't and life is good.

Some how I managed to get through all this with no wine.  I am senile.  :(