I came home to quite a surprise today.
The people that live above me were kind enough, after several months of stomping around as loud as they can at all hours of everyday, to cement my hatred for them in an act of stupidity that a normal person couldn’t wrap their head around if he or she tried.
First of all, you’re probably wondering why I’m blogging at 6am. And I’ll tell you that it is because I’d rather be at work than at my apartment, for my apartment is quite stinky right now.
Why is my apartment stinky?
Let me take you back to when I was coming home from work yesterday to answer that question. I was happy, I was listening to the NPR Podcast of Car Talk, I was on my way to pick up my long awaited copy of Gran Turismo Prologue, I was going to have a relaxing evening in front of my TV with GT5 and the new Halo3 maps, I -was- happy.
Then I got to the door of my kitchen, I heard running water, nay, I heard rushing water and when I flung the door ajar I saw rushing water. Water coming from my ceiling, which is not a place it normally comes from. Bottles, yes. Faucets, yes. Ceiling? No. After merely staring at everything I own getting soaked, I ran up the stairs to the second floor.
Pounding on the door I shouted at the apartment, but while I peered through the broken mini-blinds I saw what the culprit was. Not a broken pipe as I had feared, but a running faucet. A running kitchen faucet and a backed up sink? Seriously?
I didn’t think about it then but I realize now that I probably should have been more worried about the people in the apartment above me. They aren’t exactly a model of physical fitness, in fact the shape they are in can only be described as “planetoid-ish” (which explains how I know what rooms they are in at any given time). Nonetheless, I ran up to the fourth floor to talk to the former building cleaners, former because new building management fired them (conveniently a week before I moved in so that my apartment was a pigsty when I moved in). This is when the cleaners found out that their front door key works in the front door key of all the apartments, which is mostly frightening.
Once in we stopped the sink and began to try and sop up as much wetness as possible to prevent it from spilling into my kitchen any further. It wasn’t of much use though, the damage was done, the plaster was bubbling and the leaking had slowed down.
The residents from above us finally came back, they didn’t, however, appear very shocked or care much at all. Which pissed me off. I joked that I was thankful I had the least amount of expensive stuff in the building so I wouldn’t have to worry that anyone in the building could open my front door. To which the woman from the apartment above made the rather snide comment that: “…[we] had to have a ‘killa’ sound surround system, cause everyday [they] can hear our tv, and try and listen to find out ‘what movie [we] watching…”. Note to self: HOLD SEVERAL MORE DRUNKEN ROCK BAND PARTIES.
This morning I woke up early to go to work so I could get home before the leasing company’s office closed, I need to explain why I won’t be paying rent while my ceiling is on the floor. And why I’m going to move out 6 months early and they aren’t going to charge me. I know what water does to old plaster. My apartment will never smell the same.
Figures, I had finally unpacked. That’s what I get.
