Water adventures

Did I tell you our water adventure this week? First some background. Our landlord is about one step above a slum lord. He has 10 properties in the area, he charges rock bottom rent prices and the places aren't all that great. He does what needs to be done, but no more and has a tendency to half-do things. For example, all the wooden frames in this house were rotted out, so before we moved in he replaced all the frames. However, he failed to fix the leaky windows, so almost a year later the new wood frames are showing water damage.

Earlier in the week we noticed a very small leak under the bathroom sink. This bathroom we don't really use because the toilet runs, so we just keep the water turned off to the toilet and use the other bathroom except in emergencies. Unfortunately there are no turn-off valves to the sink, because of our landlord's tendency to only half-do things. DH kept meaning to get to it to fix it, but things came up or he forgot etc, so it just kept leaking. The only way to stop the water would be turn it off to the whole house.

On Saturday I had a huge mountain of laundry from not doing it Wed, Thur and Fri, DH's long holiday weekend, so I went to start that and my washer wouldn't start. After much trial and error, the problem was the breaker had flipped. So I turned it back on, no problem. Then I had a light bulb. The washer and dryer are across the hall from the leaky bathroom. The wetness from the leak had caused the breaker to flip. In case you're worried about water damage under the sink, don't be. There was already a significant amount. Half way into my third load of laundry, the breaker flipped again and would not stay unflipped. Fun.

Of course DH did not get to fixing the sink that day. Sunday he went to fix it and what was a small leak quickly turned into a gush when the whole pipe busted. It was actually already busted, just in a position where it only leaked. As soon as DH moved it, it fell apart. So water to the whole house got turned off. And it was late Sunday so no trip to the store to get parts to fix the pipes.

So early this morning DH ran to the store to get turn-off valves, installed those and just turned the water off under that sink. The pipes don't even go all the way to the faucet. Definitely a bathroom only for emergencies now! Oh, and to make things fun, my breaker still won't stay on. I managed to finish the load that was in the washer, but that's it. We're praying once things dry out it'll work okay. We're also praying that happens before this baby is born! Can you imagine a home birth without a working washer? Icky birthing stuff all over towels and whatnot and not being able to wash them. Blech.