6.27.2012

When It Rains, It Drips. And Drips. And Drips Some More.

It’s never a good thing when it rains inside your house.

Particularly when it is raining inside your kitchen.

Seriously, I am not joking.  I really wish I was.

I first noticed the water on the kitchen counter a couple weeks ago.  I did not think a lot of it at the time.  I had just wiped down the counter a half an hour before, and thought that maybe the sponge that I used had been wetter than I realized. 

Two days later, the same thing happened.  Again, I had just wiped down the counter a half an hour before.  But it just seemed weird, since I have wiped down the counter a million times and not had this problem.  I started thinking about it, and realized that in both instances, Nathan had just taken a shower in the master bathroom.  The master bathroom directly above the kitchen.  I think you see where this is going.

So, I climbed up on a chair and felt the ceiling.  But it felt dry.  Then I noticed this weird spot on the ceiling.  It was about the size of a penny and the best way to describe it is that it looked like a dimple.  I touched it and thought it maybe felt a tiny bit damp, but before I could come to a conclusion, my finger went right through the ceiling.  Leaving me with a penny sized hole in the ceiling.  Hmmmm.

I was rather suspicious but did not want to jump to conclusions, so I put a container on the counter directly beneath the hole.  The next time that Nathan took a shower, I ran down to inspect the counter and container.   But they were bone dry.  Mysterious.

I began to think I must be hallucinating and the water must have been from wiping down the counter after all.  I almost forgot about it, until Sunday.  Nathan was taking a shower, and I was downstairs watching TV.  And then out of the blue, I heard a steady trickle of water.  I ran to the kitchen, and sure enough there was a stream of water running through the hole in the ceiling into the container on the counter.  Great.

You may be surprised to hear that the water leak is not my primary concern.  It’s highly inconvenient that Nathan can’t use that shower, because it has built in seats, and when you have four broken toes it certainly makes it a lot easier to shower.  Instead he is stuck with using the other, non-handicap friendly shower.  But that is not my primary concern either.  The contractor and plumber are coming tomorrow, and it sounds like a one day job.  So I am also not worried about having my house torn up or having to leave during repairs.

No, my primary concern is the answer I got from our townhouse management office when I informed them of the problem.  Because guess what?  The leak may have surprised me, but they weren’t surprised at all.  I believe their exact words were, “This is actually the third house this has happened in.  We think it must be because we’re at ten years, and now everything is starting to break!”

Well, that’s reassuring.  We already know these houses have a problem with psychotic, malfunctioning carbon monoxide detectors. (Don’t ask.  It’s a very long and traumatizing story that results in me living in constant fear of anything that sounds remotely like a smoke alarm).  Apparently now they have problems with leaky master showers.  Does this mean the sagging ceiling in the living room is next?

I guess we will find out when my treadmill falls through the ceiling.

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