Drip, Drip, Drip - Not a Good Sign

Sometimes I really miss our Midwest home. At least if anything was wrong with it, it was our doing or we felt completely responsible for it. And we had the best handy man around to fix whatever it was. And he was there more often than one would think. But when you live in a shared space with strangers and other people who rent or don’t care about their space, you can feel quite helpless. And so goes the debate about owning a single family or condo unit, or renting all together. Last night my husband was in the kitchen and heard water dripping above his head so naturally we expected it to be coming from the apartment above us. After several phone calls and to make a very long story short, the problem ended up being a toilet overflowing in the apartment not above us, but one over from above us. Of course neither homeowner was home - which is always an issue here - especially on weekends in this town. And of course, these problems always occur on the weekends. In the end the problem was identified and curtailed, but we don’t feel the same about our kitchen. It’s not a pleasant sight to watch water dripping and sloshing from the light fixture and seeing the ceiling turn brown. It will take awhile to get over it. In the meantime, no one can put a price on the psychological distress this situation causes. It wasn’t the first time it has happened and won’t be the last. The sad thing is that it could have been prevented. But what makes it even more upsetting is that the person who lives there probably doesn’t even care - we haven’t heard from anyone yet. And I don’t think that matters wherever you live.