The day started as any other. The big difference for me was that I’d finally have a FULL morning at work in studio, where I could Finally get something useful and productive accomplished. Hurray!
The sun rose. I left for work. Somehow, I met up with Anna along the way.
Normally, we don’t arrive at the studio together, but on this day, we did.
I punched in the door code. I opened the door.
It took a very brief minute to realize what I was looking at.
And it wasn’t pleasant!
When we walk into the back door at the studio, we walk into the shipping area. It is usually pretty neat, but a couple weeks previous, we had to move some tubs and storage around due to a “small” drip from the ceiling over the shipping table. The landlord was alerted, the cause apparently repaired, but we hadn’t gotten back to putting all the tubs and materials back in order.
Yes, we had to use our shipping tubs to catch water.
With that “small drip,” we lost a couple ceiling tiles. And we assumed the problem was repaired.
Alas and alack, it wasn’t.
To my horror, when we opened that door, we saw that a good quarter of the back ceiling was gone – soggy ceiling tiles on the floor, on the shipping table, on the shelves, and in the tubs! Standing water on the floor, water in the ceiling light, soaked shipping materials everywhere … aaaaaaargh!
Upon reflection, I’ve decided this isn’t the best way to start a week.
I’m thinking that having water dripping through a light fixture is probably not the best situation in the world.
And why is it yellow, anyway?
(I don’t want to know!)
Ceiling tiles, when soggy, are a gunky, chalky, spreading mess. They tend to break up in strange ways, too. Some crumble, while others fall almost entirely intact.
Like these. They were practically whole.
There’s something rather disconcerting about finding an entire pipe fitting / fixture / something-or-other among the fallen rubble.
Good grief!
I have to admit, at this point, I couldn’t help laughing. What the heck?!? It’s not funny-haha. More like funny-surprising.
Fortunately, the water run stopped here, right where the old tile floor butts up against a less-old vinyl planked floor. This is where the shipping area becomes the product / supply storage area. And thankfully, the water didn’t go any further.
One of the reasons, though, that it didn’t go any further is that it was leaking down into that seam. Now, the floor where the vinyl planking starts is soft and warped.
Well, what can one say?
When it rains, it pours. And man, has it been been pouring lately, metaphorically speaking!
This wasn’t caused by rain, incidentally. It was caused by a leak in a washing machine in the apartment upstairs. Instead of reporting the leak, the tenant apparently thought some towels on the floor would take care of the problem.
Creative thinking, I suppose.
The mess is cleaned up, of course, and we are operating as normal. The ceiling still needs to be repaired. I’m hoping this happens soon.
And that, my friends, is the latest studio adventure here at Needle ‘n Thread!
It’s Always Something, innit? Life, you know!
Hope your week is off to a better start than ours was last week! There’s more coming up, so stay tuned. At some point, I’ll be sneak peeking Christmas Treat, our upcoming stitch-along!
Been there… saying a prayer for you. Patience and resilience. I’ve learned so much from you and love your products.
Oh, Mary,
That is awful. I am so glad you can look at the soggy mess is humor. It’s often my response.
My granddaughter had a similar issue in her apartment when the tenant above didn’t seem to know how to use bathroom facilities properly forcing her to evacuate her apartment twice. Life is interesting.
Oh dear. My thoughts are with you, Mary. Your landlord needs to take responsibility, financially and otherwise, for this. I hope you have a professional clean-up crew on the way to help.
What a mess, where do I start, what has been ruined, we need to call the owner and insurance company, how did this happen?
You really took this with grace, fortitude and a sense of humor.
When it happened to my sister and I we wanted to just back out the door slowly and pretend it was all a bad dream.
Such is life.