A quick bit of background: our former upstairs neighbors, Ernie and Christine, have a bad washing machine. I started noticing the loud racket that shook the whole house in March of 2004. They mentioned it to Joe, the landlord, and he said he was going to get them a new one. (Right!)

In April, it started leaking water upstairs, but, according to Ernie, was manageable. Ernie again talked to Joe, who again said he was going to take care of it.

In June 2004, it started dripping through our ceiling, the ceiling tiles started to distort from the water damage. We didn't call Joe right away because Ernie said he already talked to him. And calling Joe right away in the past has nearly always proven futile. But over the Fourth of July weekend, Glen was talking to Joe about something else (Joe's evil landscape guy -- but that's another story), and mentioned the leak to Joe.

Joe acted like he never heard of any problem with the washer upstairs, that this is the first he heard that there was water involved. Joe claimed someone was going to come over "right away, you let me know if you ever have a problem with anything else, okay?" (Good one!)

By July 19th, several weeks after 7/4, and Joe and/or his cronies had not shown up to inspect the damage to our kitchen ceiling, nor has Joe replaced the washer upstairs.

On July 19th, Ernie's wife, Christine, was 9 months pregnant. She was due the 18th, actually. She and her kids decided to get some laundry done before the baby came. Around 11 a.m., I felt the house shake again, and within a few minutes, the ceiling was dripping. I nudged the bucket back under and went back to work. A little while later, I heard what sounded like a waterfall. Water was POURING through the ceiling, all over floor; it was pouring through our pantry closet too, but luckily we had some big bowls on the top shelf (just happened to be stored there) that collected a lot of the water.

I'm sure I have some faulty wiring, but my first instinct was to videotape the mess. I mean, screw Joe. He knew about this situation for MONTHS, and we had just made an offer on a house. So I got some really good footage. Then another hole opened up in the ceiling, so I decided to stop filming and get some towels and buckets. Before I knew it, the ceiling tiles had fallen out and we were out of towels. I ran over to Ernie's and told them what was going on downstairs...they said they were doing their best to clean it up. But I could still hear (and feel) their washer. I talked to Glen, and he told me where the main water was in the house, so I turned it off, but there was so much water coming, from so many places, that it leaked solidly for another half an hour. It leaked all the way to the basement!

Anyway, I wish I could post the video, because the moving water and sound would really give you a sense of how much water came in, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of the mess.