Monday, January 16, 2006

Plumbing and Tenant Neighbors

So... about noon I get a call from my tenant in the third unit. The problem with having neighbors that are also tenants is that nobody ever makes a social call. The relationships are cordial, but bound by the strictures of our landlord-tenant relationship. I think we all tend to intentionally forget until rent is due.

That said, my neighbors do not call unless something is wrong. So I was not glad to get a voicemail indicating that unit three had flooded (argh). Thoughts of the "slab leak" (which turned out to be a overflowing toilet) came immediately to mind.

Anyway, unknown to me, the toilet in unit three will occassionally run continuously, wasting money but probably easy to repair. However, the toilet also flushes funny: it will flush, then the water will rise almost 3/4 of the way up, then essentially flush again.

What happened today was that the toilet stuck so it was running continually. The extra water caused the bowl to overflow, and once it does that it apparently doesn't receed. There's less resistence to overflowing, so the water keeps coming out the top. Thankfully, it was clean water.

The bathroom in three is connected to a hallway and is between two bedrooms and the livingroom. The overflow was not noticed for 15 minutes or so, and by the time my tenant noticed, the water had spread partially into all the rooms.

*sigh* Click to hear me whine
this is an audio post - click to hear me whine

Anyway, I called in for an insurance assessor. Ironically, the flooding from unit one was due to a toilet as well (it was newly unoccupied, so nobody noticed). The toilet in three is the only toilet I had not replaced. I'll be replacing it soon, and hoping that solves the problem.

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