The Final Hour

Most cases, when you move into an apartment, you fill out a form regarding the state of the apartment on move-in-day. On move-out-day you are presented with the (exact) same form to indicate how much damage you may have caused. The apartment complex will use this information to keep your security deposit if they determine you've damaged their space. They may also have some clause in the lease entitling them to a clean apartment, requiring you to scour it before vacating.

On Friday we started the cleansing process. Nothing too exciting. Literally just scrubbing every surface inside and out. Fast forward 2 days: it's Sunday afternoon. I told my reluctant helpers (my husband and my sister) that we could search for Halloween costumes when the cleaning was done. I made a list, and we started knocking items off of it.

Finally, I made it into the master bathroom to clean the shower and toilet. Gasp! The most daunting task that everyone else was avoiding. After I scrubbed the shower, I stood up, and my leg bumped the pipe that connects the toilet to the wall.

[Sidebar] I've examined this fixture on other toilets in my life, and this pipe is ALWAYS metal. (In the diagram it's called the shutoff). Unfortunately, the apartment is (presumably) not up to code, and the pipe on the toilet in our master bathroom was made of PVC piping. The picture was found on http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/plumbing/how-to-repair-a-toilet6.htm November 1, 2011

So, when my leg bumped the pipe, it snapped, perhaps from the pressure of doing a job for which it wasn't qualified. In that split second my life changed. Mostly from dry to wet.

Water started GUSHING out of the wall. This was not a trickle or a flow controlled by something so demanding as gravity. It shot out straight of the wall for several inches before bowing to the demands of that fickle mistress. I found myself doing to only thing I could think of; screaming and trying to catch the water with my hands. Epic fail #1. Next, I tried to put the pipe back in the wall. Epic fail #2. The water wouldn't even let me get close to the hole with that pipe.

In almost no time at all, I found myself standing in a substantial puddle. My husband tell me to turn the shut off knob. I can turn it, but it won't do any good, as it is no longer attached to anything.

Joe brings in a trashcan (sans trash) to catch the water, but it won't fit in the space. My sister tells me to get a bucket. We don't have any buckets. Next she suggests a bowl. We don't have any bowls. Important to note, WE HAVE MOVED OUT, and the only thing left in this apartment are cleaning agents, paper towels, and a vacuum.

She and I strike upon an idea simultaneously; dump the Clorox wipes out of the tube, and use the empty container to catch the steady stream. By now, the water has spread into the master bedroom, but at least we're controlling it. She is sitting on the tub catching the water in her Clorox tube and I'm bailing out the bathroom like it's a sinking ship using the only thing I could find, an empty Chinese food container.

Meanwhile, Joe is trying to turn off the water. When cleaning out the cabinets several days earlier, he noticed the emergency water shut-off. He turned it, but the water didn't stop. Now we're more than mildly concerned.

I've called the emergency maintenance line, and left a message "Hi . . . A pipe broke in our apartment, water is gushing out of the wall, and we can't get it to stop, please help!" No response. Epic fail #3.

Joe goes back to the switch to try turning it again. Since the switch is BEHIND the cabinets in the other bathroom, he finds it difficult to access the switch. His solution is to tear off the back panel of the cabinet. Without this opposition, he was able to turn off the switch completely.

The water flow finally stops, leaving my sister and I to bail, and then wipe up the puddle. But the puddle is a never-ending puddle, because the water is continuing to seep steadily out of the wall. We put some towels by the baseboard and left it for people who care more.