When Peli came home today she heard the sound of running water. We soon narrowed it down to the pipes behind the shower and it was clearly coming from above.
I’m kinda sad that I didn’t use this blog to list our last problems with running water that wasn’t inside the pipes. Some of you might recall the great flood of 2007/2008 and the resulting lack of kitchen for a year and the bath room for around 3-4 months in 2008. Just because of the “wonderful” tenants upstairs who among other things decided to take the washing machine with them even though it belonged to the owner. They were kind enough to not turn of the water to said machine, which resulted in 2-3 inches of water in the kitchen, hallway and living room upstairs, which of course ended up in our flat. I will not bore you with the other details such as calling out for plumbers, councils, housing trusts and the “brilliant” builders from ROC who had to come back three times to get the kitchen somewhat right. See I’m already going off on one and will leave it at this just for all of us sake.
Anywhoo, we called out wonderful landlady (who was brilliant throughout the great flood) and she told us to call Pimlico Plumbers and get them around tout de suite. Five minutes on the phone and less than 30 minutes later a very nice and friendly plumber arrived, let’s call him Steve because that was his name.
Steve and I then had a look see what could be the problem and agreed that it was coming from upstairs for sure. But the only problem was that in the famous flat upstairs no one was home, so we tried the one above that. Where we were meet by an dear old man who was very sorry for the spill because he had accidentally knocked the tap open and left it running. He haven’t heard it since he is deaf.
We also learned that person above the old gent’s flat is experiencing some issues with the waste pipes. She can’t have a shower while the washing machine is on because the water will not drain fast enough. But she have managed to work around that for the moment, but it is just leak in waiting. So while Steve and I was running around outside, Peli was busy on the phone to the emergency number to our council. Though that proved to be fruitless as the gent on the other end of the phone wasn’t very keen on sending someone out even though we know (from previous experience) that if this goes wrong we will be majorly f’ed. Even though we know that there is a problem with waste pipes and that is the council responsibility, I know that there have to be a big leak before they would even get out here. See what I’m trying to do here … preventative care, but oh no that is not how the council do things.
At least today was just a small leak. The joys of living in the ground floor flat, but at least we have a great landlady.