Water, water everywhere…

I’ve been trying to think how many metaphors I can mix into the story of our condo – certainly Moby Dick – though I’m not sure if our condo would be Moby Dick tormenting us or the elusive new place we hope to find. I’ll definitely make my husband Captain Ahab. Possibly The Old Man and the Sea, but I didn’t read that one, so probably not… But the best at the moment seems to be The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner where our condo hangs as an albatross from our necks, but more importantly THERE IS WATER WATER EVERYWHERE! UGH!!!

We decided a couple of weeks ago that the market is probably right for us to look to buy a new place. We knew it would be a rough market to sell in (though the picture of just how rough gets worse and worse), but we figured we’d do better in the place we’re buying to make up for it. What we didn’t count on – and probably should have – is that EVERYTHING breaks when you want to sell a place.

The first break came a week and a half ago. We suddenly noticed some water under the kitchen sink. It seems that the garbage disposal had knocked the putty on the sink fixture a little loose and some water was coming through. Luckily it was just a little bit and it was a quick fix that we (and by we I mean my husband) could easily do.

The next came about a week ago. I noticed a little water on the kitchen floor just in front of the fridge. Hmm… how odd… Did we drop ice there or something? No, not that we recalled. We wiped it up and assume it was a spill. But then the water was back. Well, crap. Yes, the fridge is leaking! But from where? Again, my husband tinkered and managed to fix it – we’d overloaded the freezer and the drain got clogged. He threw a lot out and all seems to be working well again.

So I guess it should have come as no surprise to have another leak yesterday. Truly, when I thought I heard water, I should have gone with my gut on that one, but no… It was about 10 and I was working from home and thought I heard some water in the guest bathroom. As a side note, we can always hear water running through the pipes – it’s the nature of a condo – but this sounded different. It sounded like water was spraying inside the wall, but I must just be paranoid. I called my husband at work, holding the phone to the wall, and asked if it sounded weird to him – but of course he couldn’t hear anything. He agreed that it was probably just someone running water in the building.

But it was still going on 45 minutes later… Too strange. As it was nearly 11, though, I decided I needed to shower. (I usually get online as soon as I get up when I work from home and then take care of my stuff – showering, eating breakfast, etc. when there’s a break – which is all the later with the baby in the mix now too.) I figured this would either make things worse or prove there was nothing wrong… yeah, it made things worse. Actually, truth be told, I think time just made things worse as it had hit that point. Though it’s possible I added water pressure with the shower to push through – but, as it was spraying inside the wall, cutting through was going to be necessary and the sooner the better, so I think my “worse” was actually a blessing in disguise. (I’m going to keep telling myself that.)

When I got out of the shower, the noise sounded louder / different. I went to check and that bubble of water I’d been looking for had pushed out and water was spraying into the bathroom! I threw the baby bath under the stream of water (the closest thing I had!) and a towel on the floor to catch what was dripping down the wall and ran to call my husband back to say there was an issue. But as soon as I finished dialing I realized that was stupid. He was at work and this was a building issue – I needed the management office, not him. So I hung up and dialed management – but must not have disconnected from b/c I got him instead. I frantically told him that I couldn’t talk to him as I needed to talk to building management as water was breaking through! I called the office and was told – well, we’re short staffed. I’ll send someone as soon as I can. I told him it couldn’t be “as soon as you can!” It has to be “now!” There’s a hole in my wall with water coming through. Somewhere in this process I managed to throw on some clothes (after all I expected maintenance to show up NOW!). The guy showed up a few minutes later and took his time coming in to say hi to my dog – as I tried to RUSH him to the issue. Once he saw it, he moved a bit faster!

He turned off the water and did a patch job on the pipe so he could turn it back on. A plumber is coming tomorrow and THANK GOODNESS this one is their responsibility, not ours.

Probably the most shocking / scary thing in all of this… my Mom’s emailed response started with “OMG.” Seriously. When did my Mom become a valley girl / texter…?