Dishsaster

When I started this blog a year and a half ago, the idea was that it would primarily be for, you know, keeping people up to date on the exciting happenings of life in D.C. And life remains exciting, if a little too busy for me to regularly update you all on the exciting stuff. Sadly, there is one kind of excitement that I regularly find time to blog about.

Domestic problems.

You know, like exorbitant electric bills, mold, dysfunctional heaters, and leaky walls and ceilings.

That last one — the leaky walls and ceilings — isn't just a post from the past. It's tonight's post, too.

This evening, on my way home from work, I got a call from one of the guys who lives upstairs. He told me that one of the girls who lives up there had been washing dishes earlier this afternoon and wandered off somewhere else in the house to do ... something. Something that made her forget she was doing dishes. Forget she had water running in the sink. Forget that water running in a full sink has to go somewhere, and usually goes downward, to the floor.

So one of her roommates gets home and steps onto a very wet kitchen floor. He suggests I check my walls and ceilings for leaks when I get home. I do so. I find some. I'm wet-housed. Again.

I'm at the point where I think not in terms of "oh my gosh I have water leaking through my ceilings and walls!" and instead think in terms of "hmmm how bad is this round of wall and ceiling leakage as compared with other rounds?" And this time — not so bad. I was able to find three points of leakage: the ceiling right in front of my bedroom door, the point where two pieces of drywall meet on a wall in my bedroom, and through the vent fan in my bathroom. The floors are a little wet but not swamped. Just a little localized splashage. A bucket catches the drippings in my bedroom, and a few rags sop up the wetness on the bathroom tiles. Within an hour, the regular dripping has stopped and there's just the remaining wet spots on the drywall.

I check with the people upstairs. They've let the landlord know, but the good news is that one of the guys who lives up there is a contractor, and he's already doing a bunch of work elsewhere in the house (probably for a rent discount or something). So he's going to replace the damaged piece of my ceiling and wall and take care of it all tomorrow. Not too bad.

But seriously. Who has a dish-washing emergency?!