DeJa Vu -- It's raining in our kitchen...

At the end of 2018, our Toddler surprised us one night to tell us it was raining in the kitchen... This marked our 2nd incident where our upstairs neighbors decided to do plumbing repairs without properly turning off the boiler. (Incident one was their shower install... incident two was in their kitchen above)...

And unfortunately, this was in addition to the Slab leak and all the water we found under the tile in our little man's room...  So imagine our our surprise to see this happen AGAIN.  Same owner... same renters...

But this time they decided plumbing repairs should be done at 10 pm at night... Yup, you read that correctly, 10 pm at night.  Hubs was doing dishes in the kitchen and saw water leaking down...

Naturally I went up there to let them know what was going on, and instead of stopping, they continued to do "repairs." So water leaked into my house for 2 hours straight... yup, we couldn't do to bed until Midnight.

at 10:35 pm the HOA after hours emergency line returned my call, informing me they would dispatch the plumbing company that can turn the boiler off. Ironically, it was the same person I spoke to the last time this happened...

10:56 pm, HOA calls me back to confirm I have an ETA from the plumber with an arrival time. I inform her that I do not have an ETA and have not gotten a call from the pluming company.

When the renters "plumber" AKA the homeowners handyman (who apparently does electrical work too... which is just plain scary.. ) tried to ask me to run my water so they could flush stuff out. I had to refuse because it would damage my unit more since the water wasn't turned off in the building! I pleaded again for them to stop working until the water was shut off, but they refused.

11:20 pm, I got fed up and called the plumbing company directly, and asked for an ETA of arrival since my unit was getting rained on. They tell me I should get a call in 10 minutes from the driver with an ETA.

11:45 pm, water still coming down and no call from the plumber.... but he shows up 5 minutes later and he told me he didn't call because he was already on the way... this was on the stairwell of the neighbors unit, as he didn't even come into mine.

12:06 AM the water stops leaking down... we hear lots of pipe cutting noises... but since the water isn't leaking, and since no one is coming to our unit since the problem is above us, we put box fans up in the kitchen facing the ceiling and go to sleep.

------ Next day ------

Emails with photos to the HOA .... they dispatch the flood remediation company .... the next day they come to the property, and end up cutting a HUGE hole in our ceiling.... remove all the installation.... and tell us the bad news...

 
We are going to have to close all our doors and windows for the next 3-5 days, and run the dehumidifiers and super jet fans on constant cycle.... because these pull so much power, they have to disconnect a few appliances...

Oh ya, and these things radiate heat so your house is going to be a hot box... but because your kitchen is still "accessible" the HOA won't relocate you during the drying out process... even though you don't have AC in your unit.... and you won't be able to talk or hear anything in this area because they are REALLY loud.

So, we let it go.

We ordered take out, barricaded ourselves in the master bedroom and sealed off the hall way so we could at least open a window in one room for fresh air and lower temps to sleep.. and we dealt with it.

It got up to 93 degrees.... would have been more but we lucked out and its be in the mid 60's and 
raining off and on... and not a typical California June.  


The good news was that the technician told me that because the hole was so huge (they had to cut around a can light so its just floating now), if we didn't turn the fans and heaters off they might be able to come by on Wednesday and check the status and remove the equipment before the weekend. so instead of 5 days, it would be Wed Night, 24 hours on Thursday, and hopefully removal by mid-day on Friday.

I update HOA that i'm booking the inspection for Friday and cross my fingers....

------- Friday -------

They come, and we have a 6% moisture level.... anything under 12% is considered dry, so we were like bone dry!

Now I have to coordinate with the HOA to have the drywall and my can light replaced, and for them to texture the ceiling.

Apparently we will have to pay for it to be painted and they won't paint it this time (apparently last time they decided to be nice and just pay the guy to paint it, but our new rep isn't going to authorize the painting.

When the repair company comes, i'm going to ask them to quote me to paint it if i already have the matching paint and see what he will charge me... and if I can get "the landlord" to reimburse me for the costs... cause I really don't want to sand a ceiling down AGAIN...   I've spent enough time in a drywall dust mask in this unit already...