oh, and my kitchen is flooded
I live in a condo, on the ground floor. There's a fellow who lives above me. Nice fellow. Finally learned his name this summer (I've lived here for four years) when I had to knock on the door to tell him that his water heater closet was dripping into mine, and wouldn't he like to check that out? Sure, the water heater closet is outside the house and its leakiness makes no never mind to me—unless it would cause his closet floor (my closet ceiling) to collapse. He fixed it up and all was fine. He's the other person here who feeds to ducks, and he also has fish and cats, so I have a cordial enough relationship with the guy.
Anyway, I was taking a little nap just now—until I was awakened by the sound of water running from my kitchen ceiling onto the counter and linoleum. Freaked me out. The kitchen ceiling is predominantly a cutout with flourescent lightbulbs running the length of it, and water was pouring through the edges of the cutout. I grabbed my lone bucket and a bunch of blankets, then put on some pants and trundled upstairs, praying the guy was home.
He was, and it turns out the hose to his washing machine had busted. He shut off the water and began mopping up. The dripping stopped entirely in my kitchen. I have blankets positioned to sop up the water (screw towels, I only have a few anyway) and later I'll sop up all the rest and wash the blankets. But cripes, I have a lot of other stuff to do before the morning, and this is just water. It'll dry. Or something.
I did find out that the fellow upstairs has lived in his condo since they were built in 1987. I'll bet he didn't pay more than $80K for his place. I bought mine in 2002 for $205K. The average price for the 1BRs like ours in this complex, as of last month, is $305K. I thought I had made a good investment, but this guy's sitting on a goldmine. A soggy one, momentarily, but still...
You don't have to tell me the outrageousness of these prices, I'm well aware of it. I'm not originally from here; I'm from the land of sane housing costs.
