May 2002

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The excitement for the day came shortly after I got home from work. I was reading my mail when all of a sudden the smoke detector started making a weird noise. It wasn't alerting me to smoke, nor was it the usual chirpy sound that it makes when the battery is low. But I figured it was some battery-related thing, so I got up to get the detector down before the noise drove me or the neighbors crazy.

As soon as I touched the detector, I realized what was making it be noisy. It was being dripped into by something from upstairs. I got the detector detached from its mounting and removed the battery. Then I happened to look to my left and saw that the bathroom floor was wet, too. I was beginning to suspect that the hot water heater in the upstairs apartment had burst. That suspicion grew stronger when I got into my utility closet to grab the mop. There was water in the closet, too.

I didn't bother going upstairs, because I could tell from the lack of footsteps that the neighbor wasn't home. I grabbed some towels and started covering things above floor level, and put one to use sopping up water that was in the hallway carpet. After dealing with the worst of the drippy places, I called our maintenance folk, who were already aware of the problem.

It turns out that it wasn't the hot water heater, but was the air conditioner's drain hose in the upstairs apartment that had ruptured. They promised to get someone over to get the water out of that apartment as soon as they could, but they had already replaced the hose.

As I write, things are drying out and there is no real harm done. And I'm really glad it wasn't the hot water heater. Been there, done that, and don't need a return trip. Certainly not on a Friday evening.