Monday, May 31, 2010

Leaky Building Syndrome ...

From the inside!
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On Friday morning I noticed a damp patch on the wall in our bedroom beside Samuel's cot and just thought the cleaner had wiped a mark off the wall. But later in the day I noticed it again and it was bigger. So I went and asked her if she had wiped the wall. No she hadn't. So showed it to Lyndon ... his verdict was a leak from the shower. Lyndon checked the shower fittings and couldn't see any leaks from them so got in touch with the building's maintenance manager and the Landlord. The Maintenance man came and had a look, said it was a "common problem" and said nothing could be done till Monday!
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This morning the damp patch had gotten out of control and when we walked on the floor it "squished" with every step!!
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So this morning we've had the maintenance team through looking at it, insurance assessors, a Plumbing contractor manager, then finally mid afternoon the plumbers who actually do the work. In the mean time the water still hadn't been turned off so the leak was still dripping away making our bedroom floor even squishier!
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Here's the damp patch on our bedroom wall.

The shower before "construction" started. The Plumbing Manager told me there was a "serious problem" because the shutoff valve to that bathroom wasn't working so the water to the entire apartment would have to be turned off.

Halfway through ... most interesting way of doing the plumbing! Saves wrecking the nice piece of green marble though I suppose! heheee Apparently the bottom elbow on the exposed pipe was split so that's where the leak was.
Our bathroom currently looks like this ... and this is AFTER the plumbers have cleaned up!!! (yeah right!)
So we haven't had running water since about 4.30pm this afternoon. Thankfully Mum had filled a big pot and a couple of jugs of drinking water and I had started filling the bath before they turned the water off. I had a load of towels in the wash which I had to stop ... so they are currently "soaking" in the machine! The water is supposed to be turned back on at 6am tomorrow (we shall see)!!
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Will be interesting to see how they go about getting rid of all the water under the floorboards!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, what a drama! That's the last thing you need with a newborn baby in the house - no water! But hopefully you'll get your water restored soon and have all the leaky problems fixed up!

P.S. Love the park photos in the previous post!

topkatnz said...

omg - hope you get that one sorted soon! Do you actually own the apartment or is it leased?

Steeped in Beautea said...

wow at the leaky problem there and the clean up job arghhhh. I am with Hannah and Heidi, you dont need the drama and I hope it is resolved soon and you get some water back.

Serene Ho said...

Man! Hope the knocking and hacking didn't disturb Samuel too much. Hope you can resolve this issue soon!