More blast from my past...I used to live in the nuttiest apartment complex, without further ado:
I woke up this morning to what sounded like a bullet hitting my wall and them a steam train rolling though my home.
This was in fact my new radiator bleeder (so 1900s) busting it's little cap due to extreme pressure. Upon inspection I realize all is well, but maybe I'll need a new little cap. I thought I had stowed an extra one in the kitchen and when I went there to retrieve it I develop a severe case of soaky sock. I wade through what seems like 1/2 inch water to turn on the light to further illuminate what I knew, my kitchen is flooded. I thought, my radiator is the cause. These new bleeders are too powerful. And while it is spitting lots of water, it's not enough to cause this Noah like flood. Upon further inspection I see that from under my sink is where the water is leaking from. I clean up most of the mess and turn off every valve I see. Still, there is a slow and proven to be damaging leak occurring. I do what I did not want to do at 5am, I called the building manager, who answered quite chipperly on the 3rd ring. I tell him what I've done and he explains that I have to go into my neighbors apartment and shut off her valve, because this summer they tapped into it to give my apartment more water pressure. So, if I do no turn hers off mine will still leak. I was thinking, yeah, ok, i'll just wait until you come and do that. I mean, it's 530am, she'll think i'm a rapist scam artist, as they seem to frequent this building. But, when he asked, aren't you knockin? I say fuck it, my kitchen rug is ruined, I need to save the rest and I go do it.
I walk over, and knock. She has a little dog and it gets yappy mad. I hear her yelling at the dog. I hear her walk over and then lock the door ( it was unlocked?) before she retreats to the other room to call for her dog. "Bandit. Bandit ,come here! Come here!!" I continue with my gentle rapping but she never addresses me or the fact that someone is knocking on her door. She actually becomes silent as her dog continues to bark. I find this kind of odd. I'd at least shout "Hey F'er what do you want."
Instead I stand there staring at her door until I have to say, "Um, i'm sorry, it's your neighbor, from across the hall, I need your help...." and I start to explain to the door my plight. If she looked through the peep hole she would have seen me in scrub pants, disheveled hair, ET t-shirt.... She opens the door and I tell her the story quickly and then explain how I have to shut off her valve and she's all, "You don't have to go in my bathroom do you?" And I say "No, just under you kitchen sink." and I make the trek to her kitchen she doesn't bother to turn her lights on; Why won't turn she them on? even when I get to the kitchen i'm scrambling, until i have to ask, "the light?" This whole thing is so uncomfortable and I feel bad and now I'm thinking she has a dead someting in her bathroom. Her apartment is freakishly bare nothing anywhere. I do notice a lot of empty wine bottles and cases of budweiser 30 packs. Odd. When I entered her apartment her tv was on and from the glow it was casting I could see a pair of her underpants lying in the middle of her living room floor. I fussed with her valves (the ones under her sink) apologized lots and left.
So I go back to the phone with the bldg mgr/maintenance guy, he held the whole time. I tell him I've turned of the valves and it's still leaking. And then he starts to describe the valves under her sink, which look nothing like her. And I realize, he's describing my valves. I'm thinking aww, shyt, no, fool you are describing to me my valves and they are off and this is leaking. They tapped into my valves. He realizes it too, his mistake and says he'll be right over. So at 5:45 a.m. I hear a little rap at my door and this guy walks in with a big black satchel and of course I think in it is a saw and other torture devices which he'll use to dismember and dispose of me, probably in my neighbors tub; I think they have collaborated on this project. So for safety I grabbed my cell phone.
He fiddles with my valves and shows me that they are closed, as I had closed them and it's still leaking, brilliant. He asks, "do you have the tape?" And I say, "pipe fitting tape?" Because I do have this and I get this. And he says, "no the grey tape." Duck tape? He says yes, we will fix it with this. At this point water is soaked half way up my pjs, I'm holding sopping paper towels and my neighbor is a sociopath and we're going to fix this with duck tape?? I want to walk out and move to Kansas, simply because I just don't have that tape. After searching I find I have electrical tape, and this is acceptable to him, he won't saw me up and stuff me in a bag, because for now this works.
