Raining in the dining room

Well it’s “raining” again in our dining area. The 2nd floor bathroom of the apartment next door is once again dripping into our place. We are optimistically hoping it is clean water. Most of the previous occasions have been. It somehow gets into the wall and ALWAYS drips down into our place instead of theirs. It would be so much easier if it leaked into their own place – then they would believe that there’s a problem. Sigh!

The handyman came by yesterday and tore out a piece of our ceiling. Ew, what a smell! It’s extremely mildewed and moldy with a hint of something worse. Obviously some slow leaking has been going on a long time to get that much mildew up there. But of course the worker was not able to see what the problem was. He could see where it’s running out of the concrete wall but of course since the pipes are in the wall in the next apartment he can’t see anything from our place. We told him that, after all we have been through this many times over the years but each new handyman wants to rip apart OUR ceiling and see for himself. I’m going to take pictures this time and hopefully save the next guy the trouble!

The worker was uneasy about disturbing the neighbor, after all it’s not dripping into THEIR dining area. He suggested things like cutting a hole in our upstairs floor. Can’t imagine what good that would do, if he can’t see through the hole he already made in the ceiling he won’t see anything additional through a hole in the floor! The water pipes are embedded in the concrete wall – and the waste pipes are above the neighbor’s ceiling.. (I can just see somebody staggering out of bed and falling through a hole in the floor upstairs!) His other suggestion was to chip through the concrete wall from our side to try to get at the neighbor’s pipes.. (Just what we need, a window into the neighbor’s bathroom.)

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just go in your office, shut the door and play a computer game.