sigelphoenix

I woke up this morning around 3:30 a.m. when ratzeo got up because he heard a leak.

There was not a leak in our ceiling.

There were, in fact, several continuous leaks, from various points in our ceiling, ranging from the kitchen to the hallway and the front of our bedroom.

Cue lots of running around to locate all the culprits and apply towels to soak up water and/or pots to collect it, moving valuables (like D&D books) to avoid damage, attempting to raise our apartment manager, and wrangling the cat - who thought our middle-of-the-night activity was all very exciting, and doesn't this mean it's time for him to unleash the midnight zoomies?

The apartment above us had it worse - water was literally coming down in streams from their ceiling. The apartment above them told the manager, when she went to investigate, that they had no leaks.* Enter the plumber a couple of hours later, and it turns out that this supposedly non-leaking apartment has a faulty water heater, which was spewing water into the floor. My manager informed me of this, and said that once the residents of the apartment left for work, the water heater would be turned off, which would stop the accumulation of water.**

Now our carpet is being torn up, our apartment filled with dehumidifying machines, and our ceiling possibly ripped out. On the positive side, it looks like the water concentrated on floors and counters, and may have avoided our actual stuff. We'll see when we get home and have more time to poke around. Cross your fingers for us, please!

*Grouchy aside #1. Just because you don't notice a leak doesn't mean you don't have one. I've had experience with an upstairs toilet leaking (clean, thankfully) water onto our residence below - the upstairs tenants had no idea, because it didn't leak any water onto their floor, but they tracked down the source and turned off the water. I wonder how much time was wasted (and thus, water accumulated) because the tenants halted the investigation into their apartment. (Granted, I don't know the exact nature of the exchange, because it was related to me secondhand by the manager, so I may be giving them too little credit.)
**Grouchy aside #2. This may be an uncharitable reading, but it sure sounds to me like they said, "I could forgo my morning shower/take a cold shower so we can turn off the water heater now and save my downstairs neighbors some extra water damage ... but naaaah." (See disclaimer re: grouchy aside #1.)