Joys of Renting

That title is partly serious and partly sarcastic.

I think it was as we were leaving for Christmas, JM and I noticed that the flooring in the kitchen along the seams was warped in a place or two. We were busy with the holidays and didn't give it much thought.

When we got back, we noticed the problem again (maybe worse) and took time to investigate. We first noticed the warping in front of the refrigerator. As we pressed down on the seams, water would seep up around the flooring. But it wasn't directly in front of the refrigerator--it was a couple of feet away and the area closer to the refrigerator appeared to be completely dry and unaffected.

Next we found that there was the same warping and water problem in front of the sink, but we didn't notice it as quickly because we had a rug there. Again, while there was very evidently water under the flooring in front of the sink, the cabinet under the sink appeared to be completely dry.

The rooms on either side of the kitchen didn't show any obvious water leakage or damage--one of them being the half-bath with the washer.

At that point, we called the realty agency and reported a problem, though we weren't sure what it was. They sent out a guy to check it out. He found what we had missed--the water heater, covered by a moveable wooden wall behind the washer, was leaking.

The serious part of the blog title is that it is nice not to have to find someone to do the repair, decide what new water heater we want, and figure out how to pay for it. The sarcastic part is that we have no clue how long we'll have to live with this until it gets fixed--the repair guy reports back to the realty agency, the realty agency contacts the owner, the owner decides what he wants to do about it, instructs the realty agency, who then sends the repair guy to do the actual work.

Unfortunately, this won't be a quick and easy job for the repair guy. Before he can even get to the hot water heater to replace it, he'll need to remove the toilet so that he can remove the washer.

Update: The hot water heater was replaced on Friday, Jan 11. Our kitchen floor is drying out, though I expect the flooring will remained warped.