Back in Oct, the people that live directly above us overflowed their toilet and the water came down through the ceiling in our bathroom and dripped out of the heating duct. It was a sizable puddle but cleaned up fairly easily.

Well, Wednesday night they did it again, but on a much grander scale. I tweeted about this while it was happening, but for the full story, read on…
(Updated Dec 2)
(Updated Dec 3)

I got home from work at around 11pm, and was talking to Barton in his office (the second bedroom in our apt) when I heard a strange noise from the bathroom across the hall. I thought it was the cat messing around with something plastic like he likes to do, but when I turned on the light I was horrified to see a waterfall coming from the heating vent in the ceiling.

I ran upstairs and pounded on the neighbor’s door, but nobody answered. Then I paged the emergency maintenance number 3 times. He finally called back and by that time water was gushing from the hallway ceiling, and the light fixture above my desk in the dining area. The water in the hallway ceiling set off the ear-splitting smoke detector for a good two minutes before it became saturated enough to just quit working. I went up and pounded on the neighbor’s door again and still no answer.

The maintenance guy finally got there and he also pounded on their door before going in with his key. When he got in their apartment, they came out of their bedroom because they thought “he was a robber.” There was a ton of water in their apartment so he went up to the third floor to make sure that there wasn’t a leak up there, and there wasn’t.

The maintenance guy got their water shut off and assessed that it came from their toilet. As in, someone flushed, walked away, and then didn’t think it was weird that the water just kept running or didn’t hear it. He retrieved an ancient wet-vac and sucked up most of the water in their place and then in ours (including our kitchen where the water ran under the bathroom cabinets, under the wall, then under the kitchen cabinets), and set up a floor-drying blower. Awhile after he left I found that water even got into the closet where the stacked washer/dryer is and there was a puddle of water in the dryer drum.

So far we haven’t found any of our stuff got irreparably damaged. My office chair got completely waterlogged. The ceiling in the hallway, dining area, and especially the second bedroom is ruined. The hallway carpet, and the carpet by my desk was waterlogged.

We’ve been cleaning it up and dealing with it as best as possible because the office isn’t open until Monday due to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Once we have a chance to chat with the apartment management I’ll post more details.

Update Dec 2: Monday (Nov 30), the apt management, owner, and the head maintenance guy came to look at the damage. Their assessment is that the ceiling has to be gutted and repaired. This means we have to move out, since there is no way for them to do this while we are living there due to the extent of the damage.

Tuesday (Dec 1) I spoke with the complex property manager. She offered to transfer us into a comparable unit in another building. However, when asked what we are supposed to do for help in moving (ie, turn on/turn off fees for utilities, and physical labor/help moving our furniture and belongings) she indicated that our renter’s insurance should cover that and to call our insurance company.

I called our insurance agent (State Farm) and spoke to two different office staff members. The gist of the conversation was that our insurance does not cover moving costs for this kind of situation, and that the apartment complex should be helping us with it.

I have a sinking feeling that we are going to be left holding the bag on moving our stuff, when none of this situation was even remotely caused by us (in fact, we probably saved the complex from having to gut and redo the entire apartment).

Update Dec 3: Ok, so my sinking feeling was wrong. We’re getting a $400 credit on Jan’s rent to compensate the cost of hiring a moving company and our inconvenience. We signed the lease for the unit we are transferring to today, and got keys so we can start moving our things. The unit we are moving to has newer appliances but older cabinets, and rent for that unit is $20/month cheaper than the one we are moving out of. We also have the bonus of no-one living in the unit above us for at least a couple of months.

Oh yeah. The kicker about this whole situation from the apartment complex’s point of view is that they had just completely renovated the unit we were in prior to us moving into it in Feb. As in, dropped the ceiling (at least in the kitchen) and the cabinets in the bathroom and kitchen were all brand new. They’re going to have to re-renovate it now.