Beware the Ides of March!
I've never really needed to beware the ides of March before. It's my mom's birthday, and the worst I've really had to deal with was birthday plans that either didn't involve me or were not what I wanted to do that day. Hah.
Monday, March 15th was supposed to be the first day of the best week of this semester: Spring Break. At 3:30am, Anne and I woke up simultaneously to a wet drippy sound. Uncharitably, my first reaction was "What in the hell is Jonny doing?!" It wasn't Jonny. I wish it had been. The sound we were hearing was water dripping from multiple places into the bathroom from the bathroom upstairs. At the point at which we noticed the water, the carpet was already wet just past the doorway into the big bedroom (currently being shared by Anne and I.) Once Anne figured out it wasn't just our toilet overflowing and that it was, in fact, coming down the walls, I was already up and finding the number to call for emergency maintenence stuff. You would think that with the water pouring down into our apartment long enough for the carpet to be soaked and for there to be at least an inch of water on the bathroom floor, that someone else must have noticed the issue and at least called maintenence ahead of us. But you'd be wrong. We were the only ones who called. At all. We actually ended up waking up the other first floor people, who were also on the recieving end of some fun water damage. That was about when Jonny woke up, and he and I went to work getting everything that wasn't in a plastic tote up off the floor so that it wouldn't be ruined. Starting with all the electronics. When Angie (The first person on the scene from the management company) arrived, she was shocked at how bad the water was in our place. So were we! She told us that the people who lived above us had the supply line off their toilet somehow, and instead of shutting off the water or trying to duct tape it into place, the man was just sitting there holding the supply line to where it connects, as if it was going to magically reconnect himself. I'm really hoping he didn't have any major hypothermic reaction to that -- it was really cold water! -- but he'd deserve it. There is at least one rowdy noisy kid that lives there, and I'd actually bet on 3. Anyway. Angie and the man with her took three ShopVacs full of water out of our carpet and eventually gave up. It was still really marshy, but they really did what they could in a nasty situation. An hour or so later, the Manager herself arrived to take a look at the damage. It's massive. By the point where the water got shut off, we had soaking carpet halfway into the big bedroom, all the way down the hallway into the kitchen and almost to the living room, and about halfway into the smaller bedroom as well. After Jamie had a look, she went off to call the people who could fix it, and not too long later she came in with the guy from Giertsen, water damage specialist types. He told me everything he was going to do, and I'm really glad he did, it was a lot easier then not to panic when they started working. First, they extracted all of the water from the carpet that they could. They have a little machine they ride on that sucks up the water. I, in fact, called it a Suction Segway, which the man had not heard before. It was a good laugh in an otherwise dreary situation. After they got as much water out as they could, they ripped up the carpet and took the padding out, then rolled the carpet back down again to dry it out. Also, they pulled all the baseboards off the walls that were wet, and drilled holes to allow the trapped water to escape. They also tore down our bathroom ceiling, which was full of all kinds of nasty mold. Then, they set up a whole lot of fans and a giant dehumidifier (for those of you who have been in my apartment before, it fills up the whole walk-in closet in the hallway.) So yeah. They asked us if we had anywhere else we could stay for the duration before they got started with all that. We said yes, of course. Because we really wanted things to get dry so we could live normally again. Jonny managed to get into his apartment as of 2pm on Monday, so that's awesome because not only does he have a place to stay, he has his ideal place to stay. Anne and I have been staying at Mikey's house, though I have been spending a ridiculous amount of my time over at David's, where the carpet doesn't sqwoosh under my feet and there are people who have time to pay attention to me. When we left the apartment on Monday, there were 2 giant fans in the hallway outside the apartment, and, I believe, 6 fans in the apartment proper. When we stopped in on Tuesday to get some things so we could do prep for the St. Patrick's Day bash (which Mom and Dad let us have at their place since clearly it wasn't happening at ours -- and it's tradition to throw the party now!) we ran into one of the restoration folks, and he said that they added fans to ours. Yeah. We now have 9 fans and there are 6 in the hallway. I didn't get a chance to check in on the apartment today before I got stolen for David's sister's birthday dinner, but Anne called the office, and her terse twitter really sums up what she learned from them best: "spoke to management. our place is "still very wet" and the restoration guys are apparently talking about cutting the walls. :/" Yeah. Cutting the walls. They told us that there had been water completely filling two sections of the wall between us and the hallway. Yeah. That's ridiculous. As of tomorrow I'll be going in there to start packing things. Thankfully, it's the last weekday of Spring Break, so I have plenty of time, and I'll also have a David pitching in to help.
I'm torn, about what to do if we can't get back in by Monday, which I'm really doubting that we will be able to by that point. So far, I have been staying in the loft in the sewing room of Mikey and Pixel's house, but tonight my knees aren't up to it, so I'm curled up on the couch with the comforter and my pillow, which I am sincerely hoping will not offend anyone come morning. But I'm not sure I could stay on the couch indefinitely. I could pack things up and go stay at Mom's for the duration, since that's where I'll be moving June 1 and should really know the bus routes anyway, but. It's hard, really. I just want to be back in my own space. I haven't been able to react to any of this yet, I'm just still numb. I'm figuring that's because I don't have anywhere to curl up and break in private right now.
I've been supposed to call my Aunty Nora about all of this because she's been a propertu manager for like 20 years, and knows what's supposed to get done and by who, but I'm afraid to. We didn't have renter's insurance when all this went down (foolish, I know, but it was expensive and we kept forgetting to just do it -- it's a lot more work when you tell them things like "heirloom furniture.") and we're being pushovers about this being kicking us out of our home for a week or better. Really, the ideal solution would be for Jamie to just write off our lease. We have a place to go. I'm starting to pack tomorrow.
The hardest part is that, really, I don't have a home right now. Mom's is mom's, and it's not home again yet. Mikey & Pixel's house is nice, but it's not home anymore. The apartment really isn't a home to me at all after this. The closest I really get is David's house, but that's more of a "these people like me" kind of home than the kind I'm really looking for. I just want to settle back into someplace that's going to fill me with that comforted feeling. *sigh*
So yeah. That's the story of the apartment flood of '10. Apologies if it gets rambly, it's after 1am and I'm incredibly tired. Now, I'm really hoping that April 18th goes by without something massively bad happening. But for me, it's time to curl up and sleep, and stop worrying about the theoretical future.. Tomorrow, I pack.
Monday, March 15th was supposed to be the first day of the best week of this semester: Spring Break. At 3:30am, Anne and I woke up simultaneously to a wet drippy sound. Uncharitably, my first reaction was "What in the hell is Jonny doing?!" It wasn't Jonny. I wish it had been. The sound we were hearing was water dripping from multiple places into the bathroom from the bathroom upstairs. At the point at which we noticed the water, the carpet was already wet just past the doorway into the big bedroom (currently being shared by Anne and I.) Once Anne figured out it wasn't just our toilet overflowing and that it was, in fact, coming down the walls, I was already up and finding the number to call for emergency maintenence stuff. You would think that with the water pouring down into our apartment long enough for the carpet to be soaked and for there to be at least an inch of water on the bathroom floor, that someone else must have noticed the issue and at least called maintenence ahead of us. But you'd be wrong. We were the only ones who called. At all. We actually ended up waking up the other first floor people, who were also on the recieving end of some fun water damage. That was about when Jonny woke up, and he and I went to work getting everything that wasn't in a plastic tote up off the floor so that it wouldn't be ruined. Starting with all the electronics. When Angie (The first person on the scene from the management company) arrived, she was shocked at how bad the water was in our place. So were we! She told us that the people who lived above us had the supply line off their toilet somehow, and instead of shutting off the water or trying to duct tape it into place, the man was just sitting there holding the supply line to where it connects, as if it was going to magically reconnect himself. I'm really hoping he didn't have any major hypothermic reaction to that -- it was really cold water! -- but he'd deserve it. There is at least one rowdy noisy kid that lives there, and I'd actually bet on 3. Anyway. Angie and the man with her took three ShopVacs full of water out of our carpet and eventually gave up. It was still really marshy, but they really did what they could in a nasty situation. An hour or so later, the Manager herself arrived to take a look at the damage. It's massive. By the point where the water got shut off, we had soaking carpet halfway into the big bedroom, all the way down the hallway into the kitchen and almost to the living room, and about halfway into the smaller bedroom as well. After Jamie had a look, she went off to call the people who could fix it, and not too long later she came in with the guy from Giertsen, water damage specialist types. He told me everything he was going to do, and I'm really glad he did, it was a lot easier then not to panic when they started working. First, they extracted all of the water from the carpet that they could. They have a little machine they ride on that sucks up the water. I, in fact, called it a Suction Segway, which the man had not heard before. It was a good laugh in an otherwise dreary situation. After they got as much water out as they could, they ripped up the carpet and took the padding out, then rolled the carpet back down again to dry it out. Also, they pulled all the baseboards off the walls that were wet, and drilled holes to allow the trapped water to escape. They also tore down our bathroom ceiling, which was full of all kinds of nasty mold. Then, they set up a whole lot of fans and a giant dehumidifier (for those of you who have been in my apartment before, it fills up the whole walk-in closet in the hallway.) So yeah. They asked us if we had anywhere else we could stay for the duration before they got started with all that. We said yes, of course. Because we really wanted things to get dry so we could live normally again. Jonny managed to get into his apartment as of 2pm on Monday, so that's awesome because not only does he have a place to stay, he has his ideal place to stay. Anne and I have been staying at Mikey's house, though I have been spending a ridiculous amount of my time over at David's, where the carpet doesn't sqwoosh under my feet and there are people who have time to pay attention to me. When we left the apartment on Monday, there were 2 giant fans in the hallway outside the apartment, and, I believe, 6 fans in the apartment proper. When we stopped in on Tuesday to get some things so we could do prep for the St. Patrick's Day bash (which Mom and Dad let us have at their place since clearly it wasn't happening at ours -- and it's tradition to throw the party now!) we ran into one of the restoration folks, and he said that they added fans to ours. Yeah. We now have 9 fans and there are 6 in the hallway. I didn't get a chance to check in on the apartment today before I got stolen for David's sister's birthday dinner, but Anne called the office, and her terse twitter really sums up what she learned from them best: "spoke to management. our place is "still very wet" and the restoration guys are apparently talking about cutting the walls. :/" Yeah. Cutting the walls. They told us that there had been water completely filling two sections of the wall between us and the hallway. Yeah. That's ridiculous. As of tomorrow I'll be going in there to start packing things. Thankfully, it's the last weekday of Spring Break, so I have plenty of time, and I'll also have a David pitching in to help.
I'm torn, about what to do if we can't get back in by Monday, which I'm really doubting that we will be able to by that point. So far, I have been staying in the loft in the sewing room of Mikey and Pixel's house, but tonight my knees aren't up to it, so I'm curled up on the couch with the comforter and my pillow, which I am sincerely hoping will not offend anyone come morning. But I'm not sure I could stay on the couch indefinitely. I could pack things up and go stay at Mom's for the duration, since that's where I'll be moving June 1 and should really know the bus routes anyway, but. It's hard, really. I just want to be back in my own space. I haven't been able to react to any of this yet, I'm just still numb. I'm figuring that's because I don't have anywhere to curl up and break in private right now.
I've been supposed to call my Aunty Nora about all of this because she's been a propertu manager for like 20 years, and knows what's supposed to get done and by who, but I'm afraid to. We didn't have renter's insurance when all this went down (foolish, I know, but it was expensive and we kept forgetting to just do it -- it's a lot more work when you tell them things like "heirloom furniture.") and we're being pushovers about this being kicking us out of our home for a week or better. Really, the ideal solution would be for Jamie to just write off our lease. We have a place to go. I'm starting to pack tomorrow.
The hardest part is that, really, I don't have a home right now. Mom's is mom's, and it's not home again yet. Mikey & Pixel's house is nice, but it's not home anymore. The apartment really isn't a home to me at all after this. The closest I really get is David's house, but that's more of a "these people like me" kind of home than the kind I'm really looking for. I just want to settle back into someplace that's going to fill me with that comforted feeling. *sigh*
So yeah. That's the story of the apartment flood of '10. Apologies if it gets rambly, it's after 1am and I'm incredibly tired. Now, I'm really hoping that April 18th goes by without something massively bad happening. But for me, it's time to curl up and sleep, and stop worrying about the theoretical future.. Tomorrow, I pack.