I fully intended to post last night about the dentist appointment (i.e. torture) I had earlier that day. That is until our neighbor, Chris, came banging on our front door last night just as we were finishing up Chinese takeout from our favorite restaurant. I figured he was coming over to harass us about our matching license plates that arrived in the mail yesterday and which we already put on our cars (and which look completely adorable, by the way). Nope, I was way off. When Jon opened the door, Chris simply shouted, "Water emergency, come quick!" and ran back to his apartment.
Jon took this as a code for "Dear neighbor, my girlfriend is at work and I'm bored. Please come drink beer and play video games with me." So he sauntered over to Chris's apartment and within five seconds he ran back in the door and said, "Quick, grab some towels!" Meanwhile, I was trying to enjoy Dancing with the Stars and the rest of my beer on the couch, but as soon as I heard the word towels, I ran in the bathroom after him and frantically shouted, "Don't use our good ones!" (I am in love with the towels we registered for for our wedding and am quite anal about keeping them nice!)
As Jon was pulling old beach towels out of our linen closet he quickly explained to me that there was a major leak in Chris's kitchen and that he was going to try to fix it. Sidenote: Since we have become homeowners, Jon has become quite the handyman. My hubby can fix minor plumbing issues, knock down and build walls and install lights with the best of them. Anyway, since it seemed that Jon and Chris had the situation under control, I decided to get back to my beer and my t.v. About 15 minutes passed and Jon still wasn't back, so I decided to go see if the guys needed any help. I knew it was bad as soon as I walked outside our door. There was a huge puddle of water in the hall right outside of Chris's apartment. "Ohhh, shit" I thought to myself.
I opened the door and immediately saw the kitchen covered in at least an inch of water. Wet towels were heaped at the threshold of the kitchen in an effort to save the hardwood floors in the living room and dining room. Jon was still under the sink trying to fix the leak and Chris was on the phone with his landlord explaining the situation. I immediately ran back to our condo to get the bucket and ran right back to Chris's apartment, rolled up my sweatpants and started to wring the wet towels into the bucket. All in all, I think we hauled out over ten full buckets of water from the kitchen floor. Keep in mind that Chris kitchen is about the same size as ours so that would make it about 5'x5'. That's a lot of water for such a small kitchen!
Jon was able to determine that the hot water pipe was busted but he wasn't able to fully stop the leak even after turning the water off. He got it down to a strong leak, but it still would have required Chris to bail out the bucket throughout the night. His landlord was a little hesitant to send out an emergency plumber since they are ridiculously expense, but Chris was trying to convince him that it was quite the dire situation. We were finally able to get the floor completely cleared of the water after about 45 minutes of the bucket, towel and mop brigade. I'm just glad that Jon and I were home to help him out because both his girlfriend and the other roommate weren't at home. He didn't even know where the water shut-off valve was and the only reason Jon did is because we had a leak in our shower last year which forced him to find it. I can only imagine the water damage had we not been able to locate it.
Even though we were the helpers last night, it makes me really grateful to have good neighbors because I know he would have done the same thing for us. It's a relief to have people you can count on so close by, whether it's for bailing out water or to borrow a cup of sugar. I still have to recount my dentist story for you all, but I just had to share the water debacle first. Also, look out for my guest post tomorrow over at EmilyPie while she gets her wine on in Napa Valley! Lucky girl!!
