FLOOD UPDATE

In a recent post, I wrote that my building had a major flood. This flood necessitated an building-wide shut off of the water for nearly six hours last Friday. Today, I saw one of the elevators was locked off for a move between 9am and 5pm. This is a massive amount of time for one of the elevators to be dedicated for a move.

On my way back from lunch, I saw the building manager and asked him about this lengthy move. He told me that two units are moving out because of the flood. There was enough water damage that those units are not fit for living in and I’m guessing repairs are just easier with all the furniture and people out of there.

He also confirmed the affected units are on tenth floor, which is the lowest floor in this building that has residential units, everything below is either common property, parking, or commercial. The floor right below the tenth is the amenities room, storage lockers, and gym. This whole building is lucky that the leak happened on the tenth floor and the water went down to a non-residential floor, otherwise we’d probably be dealing with more people moving out.

I can’t imagine what a pain in the ass it is for those living in those two units. Not only is your home flooded, now you gottta move your ass elsewhere. I can only hope their insurance is covering all this. Even if it does, what an upheaval to your life.

WATER SHUT OFF

I recently wrote about how my building had to shut off the water supply to all residents for about eight hours during a weekday so they could do some repairs. Well, they’re gonna do it again. In my last post, I detailed how a major water leak in one of the apartments caused extensive flooding in the lower floors. I imagine they were only able to make temporary repairs because on Friday evening they’re going for a more permanent fix. The water will be shut off on Friday night from 10am to 4am early Saturday morning.

In the meantime, there have been multiple flood restoration vans parked outside the building all week since the leak began. These dudes must be working all day drying stuff out. The amenities floor, which includes the weight room and sauna, and our storage lockers have been off-limits to residents as well. Oh wow, I totally forgot about my storage locker. Well, they didn’t say the storage lockers were affected, so I can only hope everything is ok down there. I better go check now.

LEAK

In the early evening, I needed to pop down to the drug store downstairs. As normal, I took the stairs because it’s a good way to get some easy exercise. On the way down, around the eighth floor, where the parkade floors begin, I noticed the air felt damp, like it was really humid. I also noticed water pooling near the landings of the stairwell. Then came the most obvious observation, the concrete walls of the staircase were wet. There was clearly something wrong.

When I got back from the drug store, I posted some photos to the building’s Facebook group. I was told by the group admin that the issue was that a unit in the building had suffered a very severe water leak and what I saw was the water from that leak. I cannot imagine how bad the leak was that it was able to leak through the concrete walls between floors. This is bad for the concrete, right? At the very least, it can’t be good?

I have no idea how the leak happened or what the circumstances were behind it, but the owner of that unit is gonna be in for a world of hurt both financially and practically. I hope they have enough insurance to cover this leak because if they don’t, this could potentially ruin them.

WARM THANKSGIVING

It was warm enough to wear shorts on the Sunday of this Thanksgiving long weekend. If weather reports are to believed, it was about 22 degrees Celsius on Sunday afternoon. I was outside on that day and I wore shorts and in the direct sun, it was warm enough to make me sweat. I could tell people did not expect it to be that warm because I saw many people holding onto their jackets or wearing their jackets wrapped around their waist.

In the years past, I’ve written about the relatively new phenomenon of wearing shorts for your Thanksgiving dinner and having the meal out on your patio or deck. If you had your family meal on Sunday, that was definitely possible this Thanksgiving. While on my Sunday walk a couple older folk were remarking how warm it was for a mid-October afternoon and how wonderful it was. In the moment, sure it’s great but I’m thinking the reason why it’s hot in October is the same reason why we just saw the extreme weather in Florida and North Carolina recently.

Anyways, the crazy thing is, in a month, it’s quite possible the temperatures will have dropped enough for snow to fall.

NO WATER DAY

Today was the day they were supposed to shut off water access all day to do some plumbing repairs. I can only imagine they did the repairs because I had water all day. I had enough water to poop twice and flush as much as I needed to, as well as wash my hands with hot water. In fact, I washed up several times during the day while I was cleaning and prepping to eat.

If I had to guess I was using the residual water that was left in the tanks and there was so little demand during the day that it never ran out.

Anyways, I hope the repairs went well. During the day, I was thinking what is more an inconvenience: no water vs. no electricity. In the short term, not having power is way more of inconvenience. Without electricity, you basically can’t do anything in this modern world, whether it’s fun stuff or doing work. In the long term, water becomes more important as you can’t live without water.