Splish Splosh

Above: photos of my parents grandfather clock - it's a great clock & very photogenic! (taken with my new camera)

So, at 2.30AM this morning i was awakened by a form of Chinese Water Torture occuring from the flat above.... drip... drip ... drip .... DRIP! Pretty frustrating stuff to wake up to water streaming from the flat above in the middle of the night knowing that the older lady upstairs isn't really capable of answering the door herself, so you can't really go bang on the door (and who the hell answers their door when someone bangs on it at 2.30AM anyway?)

So i covered the floor in towels and moved the furniture out of the way as best i could....I couldn't really do much else but wait until I was able to get in touch with my partner (who was working nightshift), who then could get in touch with his contact for upstairs(the son of the lady) who could then look into it & figure out what was going on.

Long story short, at 6.30am the dude came over to investigate where the leak was coming from and apparently found a soggy carpet next to the kitchen sink upstairs, so it appears as though she is able-bodied enough to turn the sink on and then let it overflow. Perhaps she felt the urge to wash some dishes at 2am, but then decided to go back to bed instead, or better yet... maybe she sleep-walked to the kitchen sink and turned it on without even realizing she was doing so! Oooh! Who knows?!

Regardless of why it happened, it did stop streaming down the walls/ceiling around 7/8am, but who's to say it won't happen again? That's the scary part. When you live in a flat like this, or any shared building really, your neighbors have a HUGE effect on your home & surroundings. You may each own your own flat but if the upstairs person causes damage to the downstairs flat it's the downstairs person's insurance premiums that go up when they have to claim for the damage, it's the downstairs person who has to practically beg the upstairs person to fix things that drip over a long period of time through your ceiling but aren't urgent, and it's the downstairs person who will have to find a new flat when the older woman upstairs, who probably needs a bit more help than her family will admit, forgets to turn the stove off and causes a small fire from burning her soup, or worse. I genuinely hope she is not THAT bad in our case, or at least that they realize it darn quick if she is needing to be in an assisted living situation. Let's hope her son is right and that this is a one-off situation!

There really doesn't seem to be a way to "force" flat-owners to sort their stuff out, it's beyond frustrating as I'm seeing first-hand with my partner who owns the flat we live in. If everyone just took care of their own space and made sure not to infringe on others in a negative way, or, if heaven forbid you did cause some damage to your neighbors flat you'd be darn quick to fix it, and make sure it was fixed properly i might add, and then apologise profusely and maybe give them some candy or wine as part of the apology, that'd be nice!

Personally, I'd be seriously embarrassed if i caused my neighbor (who was a nice pleasant neighbor compared to the hoodlums you could have) any inconvenience due to my flat causing them any damage, and I'd be darn near horrified if i had a repeat problem that consistently caused damage that I seemed unable to fix(that'd be mainly because i would DEFINITELY be trying my hardest to sort it out), so all in all..... what is going on upstairs???? On behalf of my partner i say a big loud frustrated AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

And now it has come to the end of my rambling rant on the splishy-sploshy situation that occured this AM.

The End.

(Definition of these flats = one flat upstairs and one flat below, but looks like a stereotypical "house" from the outside, except it has 2 front doors instead of 1)