At about 9:00 this morning, I woke up and saw water pouring down next to the bedroom window. I thought it was caused by a strange rain storm, so I went back to bed.
I woke up this morning to the sound of a police officer pounding on my door. I scrambled up, grabbed my bathrobe, and answered the door. The officer asked me if I had heard a fire alarm (nope, no alarm in here) or noticed sprinklers going off (nope, apartment was dry).
Apparently, the cold weather caused the a sprinkler pipe to burst and pour water down my patio roof. Luckily, no water came into my apartment (or so I thought at the time). The firemen were able to get the sprinkler water turned off until the apartment maintenance people could fix the issue.
The police officer was followed by 4-5 firemen. I was torn between getting dressed and getting the cats sequestered so they wouldn’t run out the open door. I ended up getting dressed and shoving Stella in the bathroom. Ambush and Kiesha stayed under the bed in absolute fear.
After some discussion, the firemen brought in a ladder see if the broken sprinkler pipe was in my attic and through the outside storage unit. No luck. They could not find the source of the leak.
The firemen and police officer took my phone number and the number for the maintenance people and left. I was told that the officers might come back or at least the maintenance people.
The maintenance people came by about 12:30. They found the burst pipe in the ceiling of my storage unit. A six inch section of the sprinkler head had pushed through the ceiling, but luckily the head had not broken. However, water had sprayed inside the storage unit, soaking everything.
The maintenance guys said that the drywall people would be by some time today to assess the damage, as well as other contractors who will be using de-humidifiers to dry out the walls.
Meanwhile I have to get all of my stuff out of the unit and figure out how to dry it. Plus I have to document everything so I can contact mky insurance company and file a claim on my renter’s policy.
A friend of mine said he would help me get stuff out of the closet.
Great way to start a Saturday morning, huh? Better than the last time I was woken up by a Durham police officer rapping on my front door to tell me that Dad had died.
Ugh. That’s horrible. Hope everything gets sorted out!
Thanks. It looks like most of the stuff will get sorted out Monday. The sprinkler isn’t working yet but that should be fixed tomorrow. The repair guys are supposed to be out tomorrow and replace the dryawll in my storage unit and in the water heater closet.
I did get very lucky: none of my stuff was obviously damaged.