Oh yeah, we ain’t done yet. Let’s see what new mischief can befall our favorite attic dwellers, Marjorie and Don. The sitcom writers were at it again last Sunday starting at 8 pm. Back to first person.
We had just finished a nice, quiet baked chicken dinner with butter beans and rice; Marjorie’s favorite, prepared with love by me. All was right with our world.
I was in my usual recliner, watching TV in the den. Marjorie was in the bedroom, door closed while combing our cat, Ziva.
Suddenly, my calm was ruffled by Marjorie quietly and liltingly asking, “Don, can you come in here please?”
Shoot (I may not have said, shoot). That means I gotta get out of this recliner, not an easy task for this octogenarian. But I did it and headed toward the bedroom. As I approached, I heard Marjorie’s muffled words about some water leaking. Uh oh.
I opened the door to find it was literally raining from the ceiling fan over the foot of our bed. I think I said “shoot” again. Water had splashed to many parts of the room cause the fan was initially on.
Marjorie had luckily turned the fan off, so the “rainfall” was sorta centered over the foot of my bed.
My first reaction, believe it or not, was to laugh. It was raining in my bedroom and I was getting wet. That was funny.
Within seconds I rushed to our master bathroom and cut the water off at the cut off valve for our entire apartment.
That slowed the rainfall to a persistent dripping from several areas. With several buckets and plastic trash bags. We were keeping most water from hitting the floor. But we had no running water. We needed a plumber NOW.
Smoaks Comfort Control was in my phone contacts cause they helped us with a water heater leak a few months earlier. Another sitcom episode. So they got the nod.
In a stroke of good fortune, John, the same plumber who helped us before was on call and soon available. Remember. It’s Sunday night, so there was a $199 charge for just showing up.
I did find it ironic that it was 199 not 200. I guess they thought that would ease the pain a bit. With water dripping heavily from my ceiling fan and no running water, I expressed immediate willingness to pay the $199.
In another good stroke of fortune, John was at our door within an hour. It’s now approaching 10 pm. I had moved a bunch of s—-f from our utility room to give John access to a rather small trap door to get above our ceiling and find the source of leaking water.
That source was an overflowing drip pan beneath our AC unit above our bedroom. That overflow was caused by clogged drain pipes to or from the AC unit. John stopped the rain by unclogging the drain pipes and allowing the water to flow out of the house rather than into our bedroom. Yay. Problem sorta solved. Crisis averted.
We ain’t outta the woods yet. John recommended that we replace the pipes to/from the AC unit. They could clog again and cause another rainfall.
The Sunday fix cost me $426 (including the $199 fee). Replacing pipes was gonna be another $771. So I’m looking at over $1200. Before I’m fixed. Oh well. We’ve opted to do it and John’s returning to our attic Wednesday to do the job. Lucky him. Lucky me, I get to remove a bunch of stuff from the utility room Tuesday night, so John can shimmy up there again for 2 hours to replace defunct pipes. Ain’t life grand? Enuf