So we wake up this morning to the sound of water splattering in the kitchen. My wife goes to change Gabriel’s diaper and hollers over to me (still in bed, trying to ignore the splashing water sound) saying, “There’s water leaking from the ceiling!”
Her words hit home and I began to really wake up. It wasn’t just a dream. There really was water flowing from our kitchen ceiling down the wall and onto the floor and over onto the cabinet where we keep most of our dishes.
After quickly throwing on my clothes and examining the growing mess on our hands(sticky white plaster falling off the ceiling and onto the floor and a growing puddle), I ran out the door to go up to the 3rd floor and see who in that apartment had decided to try and flood us out of ours.
As I knock, I am peeking in the eyehole (what are those things called? the little glass holes for looking at who’s on the other side of the door) and I quickly notice that the apartment is empty. All I see is the blank white color of undecorated walls and unfurnished floors. How does an empty apartment spring a leak? Only in China.
I then called Geoff, my friend and boss at Plateau Baby Shoes, to ask him what I should do. His answer made me feel kind of dumb. “Go to the gate man downstairs and have him help you call the owner of that apartment to come over.” Of course, the gate man! He knows all of the tenants and can get someone over here quick.
I run down the stairs and down to the gate man’s quarters. He is no where to be found, but his wife is playing badminton with her son. I tell them the problem and she points to an office back down toward our end of the building and says, “There! That’s the man who owns that apartment! Go talk to him.” I run back to talk to the owner, and it turns out that he doesn’t own the 3rd floor apartment, but another apartment nearby. I explain the problem and take the guy up for a look, because he says he can get a hold of the real owner.
As he is trying to get in touch with the owner, I go back to life as normal, only with the sound of splattering water still echoing throughout the house. About 30 minutes later, just as I am running out to see if anything is actually happening in the search, the owner rides up on his bicycle and we all run upstairs.
He unlocks the door to the 3rd floor apartment and we all go in to look at the source of the leak and…. low and behold, his apartment has the same problem mine has! He has a leak from his ceiling in the same spot coming from the 4th floor! One of the guys turns to me and says, my coworker who has been downstairs in the office the whole time is the 4th floor owner. It’s his apartment that has the leak!
I run downstairs and tell the real culprit the news. He jumps up, saying that he was sure he turned off his sink this morning and runs upstairs. I follow right behind and much to his suprise, we find nearly half of his apartment covered in a big puddle and the sink still running!
After the source of the water was shut off, it still took another half hour or so for the water to stop flowing down through the 3rd floor and into our apartment on the 2nd.
What a way to spend a Sunday morning!
