Our Scary Story

Do you like hearing about home-horror-stories? In light of this scary Halloween holiday I thought I would share our scary story. Last night Howie and I were watching TV and I kept hearing this constant "tick-tick-tick". It somewhat resembled the sound of a ticking clock. We ran through every option of what the noise could possibly be. A really, really loud clock in another unit? A bomb? A metronome? We both sort of shrugged it off. Around 10:30pm I decided it was time for bed and I shut off the TV. "Tick-tick-tick". There it goes again. I thought it would be a good idea to investigate the bothersome noise. To my surprise, when I put my ear to the wall of our laundry room I could hear the noise the loudest. I went in to the laundry room and found a small stream of water running out of a hole in the wall that was put there to accomodate a hot water pipe that hooks into our water heater. Great, we have an internal leak. I put my hand to the wall and I could tell there was water damage to it. The drywall was mushy in some places. We initially thought it was our neighbor's (above us) water heater that was leaking. We woke them up to let them know. I'm sure they didn't appreciate a rude awakening at 11 o'clock at night, but we felt it was an emergency. There was nothing visibly wrong with their water heater so we had to take matters into our own hands. I didn't really know who to call about it so I called the first person I could think of. Dad. Unfortunately, at that hour he was completely asleep. My second thought was a plumber. I got a hold of one and they said there was not a lot they could do at that hour and told us to just shut off our water for the night and they would come check it out in the morning. So, we did. This morning they came to take a look at it and in order to find the source of the leak they had to cut a gaping hole into our wall. See...They even had to go up into our ceiling. What they found shocked me. Apparently, the pipe that was the culprit behind our mushy wall was RECALLED and BANNED from use in the 1990's due to a major class action lawsuit that was filed. The reason for the lawsuit? Well, these pipes have a great susceptibility to leak. AND LEAK IS WHAT IT DID! The guy that cut into our dry wall said the wall was very moist. Who knows how long this leak has been happening. The only reason why we heard it in the first place is just because of how the water just so happened to be dripping on another pipe and making the loud noise. Otherwise, we would've never known.

Here is the kicker...I call the president of our HOA board and tell her the situation. She tells me that if our unit is the ONLY one effected as a result of this, that it's our responsibility to pay for the damages. So, Howie went down to talk to the people that live below us. They are two single bachelors. They let Howie take a look in their laundry room and they found a small drip in their ceiling. And not only that, but their ceiling was buldging down! Their water damage must be worse than ours. So, I go back to the president of our HOA and let them know the unit below us is also effected. She says she'll get back to me. Her answer wasn't exactly what I was looking for. We have now found out that because the pipe directly services only our unit that it is OUR responsibility. And not only are we responsible for our damages, but for our neighbor beneath us, too. Terrific. We are responsible for the shortcomings of a pipe that was recalled and banned from use in the 1990's but yet overlooked when our condos were refurbished just LAST YEAR. Am I crazy or does something seem not right about this?