It's especially bad when you are hobbled and unable to respond to whatever her emergency is. In this case, the news that our apartment was flooding.
Living on the water's edge as we do, I always have in the back of my mind the possibility of flooding. Images of being ankle deep in the remains of what was once my home have been an occasional snapshot in my dreams. So when she said flooding, I threw the blankets off me and was all set to jump out of bed, start grabbing our most precious possessions, and head for the high ground. That is till I felt the weight of my left leg and stumbled into conscientiousness with the reality of my inability to walk unaided.
Betsey came to my rescue by quickly adding the information that it was just certain parts of the apartment, specifically the hallway and the living room, where water had drenched the carpeting. And drench is being kind. Water was pushing up the wheels of my scooter as I examined the damage. There was a huge bubble in the paint on one wall and evidence of water damage on other walls. I couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. Initially I thought the water table had risen under the house, but it made no sense that only limited areas were wet. That's when I heard the splashing of what sounded like a strong rainstorm outside the window.
In fact it wasn't rain outside the window, it was water coming down from our upstairs neighbor's apartment. At that point, awake enough to have had the cobwebs swept away, I realized what had happened. The upstairs hot water heater had exploded. My going up there to wake my neighbor was out of the question so Betsey telephoned her. Then she telephoned the emergency number we had for the property managers. This number was supposedly for the security force that patrols our complex, but we found out from the answering service that between 2AM and 6AM, the security patrol goes home. Really Schooner Bay? You couldn't pay for the extra four hours out of twenty-four in a day? Let me just say here that if they want to have four hours off a day, why not take, oh, the hours between noon and 4PM? I'm really not worried about break-ins in the middle of the day and any emergency could be handled by the on sight property managers. I'm just saying.
At that point I called the Foster City Fire Department. Because of a previous experience with a neighbor's water problems, I knew the FCFD was trained in water shutoff and flooding procedures. As we waited for their arrival, the security company called us back, informing us that someone would be up there in 45 minutes since they are located down in San Jose. He also told us we should call the fire department. Thanks Sherlock.
I don't want to say that the FCFD is starved for something to do, but I never expected SEVEN firemen to show up. They hopped right to it, cutting off the water in our neighbor's apartment to stop the flow, bringing in the uber-industrial shop vac to start sucking up some of the water from the carpeting, and moving furniture out of the way to save it from getting wet and to make room for the vacuuming. The fireman on the vac was the obvious rookie so I asked one of the other guys if that was part of the rookie hazing, to have to do the hardest work in this particular situation.
"No, he's got to learn how to do it", he said. Then he grinned and added "Besides, the hazing is a LOT worse."
Within a remarkably short time, the excess water had been vacuumed away and the guys were on their way out the door. It was then that the security guy showed up, wrote some notes down, and said the maintenance guy would be by shortly. Fortunately, shortly was just as the security guy was about to leave. Fred, the maintenance guy, was someone I had dealt with before which I was grateful for. Very soon a water damage specialist was here, vacuuming up more water, pulling up the wet carpet and hauling off the now worthless padding beneath, spraying disinfectant to (hopefully) prevent any mold from setting in and setting up three industrial strength fans to dry everything out. Conspiratorially he told me they should be left on for 24 hours, but as long as we turn them back on the next morning it would be okay to turn them off when we went to sleep. Fred surveyed the work and signed off on it. He also told me they would have to wait on everything drying out before being able to decide what to do with wall damage.
By now though, our household was taking on the look of a hoarders paradise. Since the largest pieces of furniture moved were the china cabinets; our tables, counters, and any other flat surface had been pressed into service as a holding area. Books, glasses, dishes, all of our "stuff", were strewn everywhere. I think if someone had walked in at that moment and asked if we were having a garage sale I would have said "Fifty bucks and it's all yours".
So now we head into the blame and pay-up period the inevitably follows any calamity. Our insurance company has taken a report, the property managers have taken a report, I've given my report (to you, you're reading it right now), all parties have reported in and on. But meanwhile our house is still in an uproar and the fans are still running. But here's what is most disturbing me. I could do very little to help. My foot kept me from doing much more than moving a few of the lighter items out of the way. That made me frustrated and feel, well, old. That really sucks. "Stuff" can be repaired or replaced; my dignity is something else all together.
It's going to take a while for that to be restored.
No comments:
Post a Comment