The 2nd Plague

Okay, so since Cesar Chavez's selfless actions afforded me the luxury of a day off yesterday, I finally got around to uploading the photos of the the sink overflow aftermath. (It's too bad there isn't a scratch-and-sniff option because the aroma of manky swamp water that has since permeated the house really adds a little zest to the photos.) Let me start back at the beginning...

Since we've lived in the condo, we have had 3 different people/families occupying the unit above us. It wasn't until the 3rd family moved in about 6 months ago that we started having plumbing problems. The sink would just start backing up at random; we quit putting anything other than liquids down the disposal after the first backup so we were confident it was a problem with the people upstairs. Before the overflow last Wednesday, there had been 3 earlier incidents of sink pluggage. We were (luckily) home for all 3 of those occurrences, though more than 1 of them required Robert to chop up our hose, shove a section down the drain, suck on the other end to start the flow and defile one of our old garbage cans with grody water emptied from the sink. Biji and Carissa were at our place during one of these hose parties - they can vouch for us. (Poor Robert... I don't know what all he's accidentally ingested against his will while sucking on the hose.)

Cutting to Wednesday: When I got home from work at about 5:45 I saw that the sink had backed up about halfway. The water level didn't change while I changed and grabbed my tap shoes so I called Robert at work, left him a message and ran out the door. Robert usually comes home a little earlier on Wednesdays to grab the dog from my parents' house while I'm at class, so I figured I was safe heading to class. (Plus, let's be honest - I am so useless in those kinds of situations. Would I have done a lot to rectify the situation had I stayed? No. I just would've watched the water level to make sure it was static. If it started overflowing, I probably would've called my dad!) Unfortunately, Robert had already left by the time I'd left the message (which, in my defense, was quite out of the ordinary. The man NEVER leaves before 6, even if the house is burning down. I swear!) and since I didn't leave a duplicate message on his cell (see previous sentence) he never got the memo. Long story less long: miscommunication on both ends led to disaster.

By the time I got back from class at 7:30, I knew as soon as I opened the door that we were in trouble. The back door was all fogged over, the room was crazy humid and the smell was already bordering on rank. From 6:15 (when I left) to 7:30 the sink had gone from half-full to completely overflowing onto the kitchen floor. So much so that there was a half-inch of standing water in the kitchen that was slowly seeping into the living room carpet. Water that wasn't just water but water full of weird food remnants like oatmeal, cilantro and some kind of bean residue. So, of course, I stood there like a deer in the headlights and called Robert. He, of course, hadn't gotten my message and so had no idea what I was talking about; I, on the other hand, thought he had received the message and thought he was a #1 bonehead for going to the dog park when the sink was clogged. Anyway, he came home, grabbed the wet/dry vac (which I didn't even know we had... see? Useless!) and got to work. (Oh, I should add that when he went to the upstairs neighbor and told him about what was happening and asked him to refrain from showers, etc., the neighbor balked because he needed to shower before work. Douche. Robert made it quite clear that was not an option.)

The soaked carpet at the kitchen floor/living room border

The kitchen cabinets started absorbing water...

And the water actually started seeping outside from the kitchen/living room floor

As Robert ran out to the patio to start dumping the siphoned water over the ledge, he noticed that a bunch of water was leaking out onto the patio from the kitchen. Nice.

The water actually made it into the living room proper - the worst was right in front of the fireplace.

Summing up the aftermath: We had to go through the HOA and they got a plumber and a restoration crew out to the house by 10 or so Wednesday night. The plumber said he pulled a bunch of vegetables and a big wad of celery from the pipe. (I should add that the pipes in our complex are all completely level - there is no slope. Every time we've had to call a plumber out for the sink, they've all complained about the stupid pipe set-up.) So it's clear that the upstairs neighbor is a COMPLETE moron. Who puts celery of all things in a disposal?! Good grief. Even the plumber, when we asserted it was not us who had put the crap down the sink, said "Yeah, the first floor people rarely do. Because they know what can happen." Indeed.

The restoration guys did their thing (removed the manky carpet padding, baseboards, etc.) and set up a combination of fans and dehumidifiers. Here is one fan (and a very pleased Robert) trying to dry out the carpet:

Ah, the old Lava Eruption peel-and-stick tiles that the previous owners slapped down all over the house. How nice to see you again...

The restoration guys came back Thursday to check on the progress. Not good. They said the kitchen floor was much wetter than they thought it would - and should - be. So, they told us they'd be back Friday to rip up the floor. Robert and I were both bummed by this news because the kitchen linoleum was the only floor in the condo that we really, really liked! It was great! Even the restoration guys asked us if it was new because it was in such good shape. Suck.

Unfortunately, the restoration peeps left 3 gigantenormous dehumidifiers running all throughout the weekend and that really sucked. So very loud. SO very hot! We tried to be out of the house as much as possible and when we were in, it was shorts and flip flops all the time. (As I said in the earlier post, it got up to 81 degrees in the condo so I'm not exaggerating here, people!) They came back Monday morning and said the cabinets by the fridge were still wet, so they took 1 dehumidifier away and left the other 2. I had stayed home in the morning to catch the restoration guys and so when my dad stopped by later to pick up the dog, he was kind enough to wheel the fridge out as far as it would go to dry those puppies out as much as possible! Luckily for us, when the RPs returned on Tuesday they deemed everything dry enough and took the last 2 demon boxes away. YAY!

Now the condo is back to normal temperatures and this is what we have:




As much as I don't like them the HOA has actually done a pretty okay job on getting everything done as quickly as possible. The maintenance guy called us up yesterday to set-up an appointment with the flooring people and they are coming tomorrow to assess the damage. We'll hit their showroom on Saturday to pick out our new flooring and then I guess they'll install its sometime next week. The HOA also called the upstairs neighbor to inform him he's an idiot and not to shove everything but his couch down the disposal. I don't know what he said to them but he hasn't come and said anything to us yet, which is not impressing Robert too much. I just hope the dude heeds their warning and refrains from putting anything down their disposal! I don't have a lot of faith, though. Keep your fingers crossed.

(Oh, and just FYI, I called the post 'The 2nd Plague' because I kept making the joke that on Monday we had the power outage and on Wednesday we had the water damage, so by Friday the locusts should arrive. No one got my joke, though. It's sad.)