Here Comes the Flood

I called maintenance last Friday, because my upstairs neighbor’s tub (I think) is leaking. I woke up at 4am to water splashing on my bathroom floor tiles. By the time maintenance got here, at about 1PM, the dripping had long stopped. The wall still felt cool and damp to the touch, though. And, there is mold growing where there’s never been any before.

I knew that there had once been a leak in that spot, because the drywall and paint were damaged. The leak was (presumably) fixed, and the wall was patched before I moved in. This was the first sign I’d seen of an active leak in the two years I’ve been here.

The maintenance guy felt the wall and said it was dry. Funny, because it felt cool and damp to me. And then he felt around and poked a couple of holes in the spots that had the most damage. He said that everything was bone dry. Not possible. I insisted that there damned well was a leak. He went upstairs to look, didn’t see anything, turned on the tub, then the shower, flushed the toilet, and came back to say that there was on leak. WhatthefuckEVAR. I know there was a leak. I may be batshit crazy, but I don’t actually hallucinate that sort of stuff.

I explained to him that I wasn’t trying to be a pain in his ass, but that if something is leaking in the wall, it’s going to cause structural damage. No skin off my nose, but the folks who own the place might prefer that the leak is found and fixed before they have to gut the walls.

Anyway, he went back upstairs to look some more. Whatever he did made the leak reappear. I went up to tell him that there was now water streaming down the wall. He asked me what was making it leak. Huh?! Whatever the hell you just did, jeenyous. (And I thought I had a short attention span!) I expected him to follow me back downstairs to look at the amount of water that was leaking, but he didn’t. I never saw him again. I assumed he found the leak and fixed it.

Silly me.

Now, of course, it just started leaking again. Bad. This time, instead of just a few splashes, it was a bunch of splashes and a stream of water. I’m going to have to call again tomorrow, and I’m not happy about it. Mr. Fixit acted kind of put out that he had to locate a leak. Like it was my fault or something, or like I was making it up.

I am not amused.