Monday, November 8, 2010

And the hits just keep on comin'

Remember yesterday I blogged about our hot water heater breaking in our house in LA? Right. So meanwhile back in Colorado, fast forward 12 hours. I had just given the kids a bath. I walked in the kitchen to get Carter a snack before bed. I looked down on the floor and saw water that looked like it had been sprayed everywhere. I said "Carter, did you spill water all over the floor?" Then something told me to look up. Sho nuf, there was water dripping from the lights in the kitchen. Well, above the kitchen is our bathroom. So I went upstairs and part of the carpet was soaked! I'm talking squish squish when I walk on it. I couldn't find any obvious sign of a leak. At first I thought it might be coming from the ceiling since everyone and their grandmas have had their roofs replaced here. But no such luck. I had taken and bath in there that morning before church and I always let Carter get in the tub after me. He didn't let the water out so I thought maybe there was some type of leak around/in the tub but the carpet around the tub was dry. Our little toilet room was also dry as was under the sink.

So now what do I do? Theo is like I said unavailable until Wednesday night. Our landlords live in Germany where it is 3:00 in the morning. Then I remember I should probably turn the water off to the house. I go to our neighbors house, pound on the door (because I see the tv on) and no answer. Then I go to call a friend of mine but the cell phone number I have for her in my phone no longer works. Figures! So I trek through the backyard in the pitch black and knock on another neighbor's house whom we've only met once. Fortunately they were home and super sweet. The wife and husband both came over and she showed me how to shut the water off.

Our lease we have says to call some friends of our landlords that just live 5 minutes away. Wouldn't you know I called several times and didn't get an answer. So finally, I just called Steve in Germany. By this time it's a little after 4 a.m. there but what else could I do? He said as long as the water is shut off then wait until the morning to call a plumber.

Literally, as soon as I hung up the phone, his local friend calls back. He ended up coming over to take a look and to make sure the water was indeed properly shut off. He pulled up the carpet in the bathroom and the pad underneath was SOAKED!!! He thinks a pipe underneath the floor is leaking.

While he's here, I get a call from Steve's wife, Jeri (who is living in TX right now for medical reasons). I immediately feel bad for calling and waking up Steve but would have felt worse if their house flooded, right? She was very sweet and said she would call me in the morning with the name/number of a plumber.

The reason I didn't call the plumber myself was that in our case with our LA house, we have a home warranty. It should cover the replacement of the hot water heater. If our renters decided to take it upon themselves to call a plumber and/or fix anything themselves, then we have to pay all of those expenses ourselves. So I didn't want to do that to Steve and Jeri just in case they did have a warranty.

Whew! What a night right? Why do things like this happen only when I can't talk to Theo? Seems like this runs in the family because things like this always happen to my mom too! Now I'm trying to figure out how we're going to use the bathroom all day since we can't flush the toilet. I can't wash Olivia's bottles or diapers but thankfully I always keep a supply of disposable diapers on hand. Just not sure what to do with the bottles. Yes, she still uses bottles because she outright refuses to drink milk out of anything but. But that is for another post. I'm also supposed to watch Amy's boys at my house this afternoon. Maybe we'll have to hang out at her house instead. What a pain all of this is. I can't WAIT to talk to Theo. He probably won't even believe me.....granted with the luck we've been having, he probably will!

2 comments:

The Shoemakers said...

Yeah we got the bad luck too. Our fridge and freezer went out Wednesday night and we had someone come out and can't fix it till Tuesday or Wed because they had to order the part! Things we take for granted.

Laney said...

I'm so sorry you are having this issue and without your husband to take the burden off of you. With a house, it is always something! But it will get better!