The Great Leak of 09

This post is going to be another copy and paste situation. Long story short, we had a leak after it rained and it ended up being much bigger than we had anticipated. We rent a townhouse and unfortunately it took a lot of arguing and grief to get our landlord to take care of the situation correctly. Below are some quick notes I took while it was happening.

10/13/09

I am pregnant on bed rest. My mother in law is here taking care of me. In the afternoon she walked on the carpet near our kitchen and noticed a wet spot. We put a towel down but didn’t think anything of it as it was raining outside and thought maybe we stepped on the ground with wet shoes.

A couple of hours later my husband came home from work and noticed the wet spot as well. Only this time it was bigger. We put down towels and called the landlord to let them know we had a leak. Underneath our kitchen is the laundry room. When my husband went to the laundry room he noticed that the leak had come down through the ceiling and was soaking up the ceiling.

10/14/09

My husband went downstairs to find that the wet floor had spread about 4 feet across our dining area. When he went to the laundry room the ceiling was now dripping water. We had to put down two buckets to soak up the water coming from above. We called and left a message for the landlord who said they would take care of it. At this point the house smells like mildew.

First, the landlord sends over her husband who built the building. He searched for the source of the leak, but didn’t know for sure. It wasn’t coming from the roof because we live in a 4 story building and the leak started in the floor of the 2nd level.

A few hours later, they sent the building handyman to pull back the carpet. He pulled the carpet back and put on a fan. He propped the carpet up with a honey dew he took from our kitchen. The padding was left on the ground. When we talked to the landlord she said the was all that needs to be done and that we are overreacting.

We decided to call ServePro to find out how they would deal with this type of situation. They obviously did not see the leak, but gave us what they would generally do. They said that we needed to pull the padding up from the carpet, get professional fans, a dehumidifier and heaters for the drywall. None of which was being done. At this point it is 9pm and we leave a message for the landlord telling her that more needs to be done because we do not feel safe.

10/15/09

The landlady came in the morning to check out the place. She said that everything was being done the way it needed to. They would poke a couple of holes in the ceiling to let out the moisture and then it would all dry in a couple of days.

Larry and her got into a conversation about safety and how what she is suggesting is not safe for a wife on bed rest. We told her what ServePro said and told her that we would accept nothing less. We even offered to pay her $300 to just get it done right.

A little while later someone came to assess the situation and gave her an estimate. Then we heard nothing for a couple of hours. Eventually, she came back with someone else who gave an estimate that she was happy with. Isabelle, the landlord, said the guy would be here before 4pm or after 6pm, but when we called him personally he said he would not be coming until the morning because Isabelle is jerking him around with cost. He said he would come at 9am to start work if she would sign the papers needed to begin.

10/16/09

The specialist and Isabelle arrived at 9am. Isabelle got mad at us because we told the specialist, Gabriel, that I was pregnant on bed rest. She complained that he was going to hike up the price now. All we cared about was that he did it safely. He promised that he would and said that his reputation is important to him.

After a brief inspection they found the situation was more than just drying out carpets and drywall due to a leak. There was mold in our kitchen and dining area. They spent the day putting up plastic to block the spores from releasing when they cut into the drywall. Our pantry had to be removed from the kitchen and all of the food is in boxes in our living room. Our refrigerator is in the middle of the kitchen and it was recommended that I do not go down there. Even better would be that my husband doesn’t either.

The place looks like it is under quarantine. In the morning, they will be back to block off the basement/laundry room area so that they can cut into the drywall without releasing any spores into the air. It doesn’t look like the mold is down below.

Gabriel has recommended that all the carpet be replaced where it got wet because it is not healthy.

I didn't continue documenting over the following week so I will summarize the rest. It ended up that the leak had been occurring for a while in the ground and that we had a lot of mold. They had to cut out the bottom 2 feet of kitchen wall and they had to redo the pantry because there was black mold underneath it. We had very little access to our kitchen and couldn't turn on the lights because they were under the tenting used to block the spores from releasing in the house.

After Gabriel finished the job (he was fantastic) he called in a specialist to measure the spore count. We had to wait 2 days until we got the results. Unfortunately, they came back positive. So, they had to cut out more drywall so that the inside of the wall could dry out more. Long story short, after 2 1/2 weeks and a short stay in a hotel while they painted, we got our house back on October 30. There are still some things left to be done, but overall, we hve our kitchen back!

Here are some pics of the situation...

The Landlord's Solution: Pull up the carpet and prop with a honey dew

The final solution: pull up carpet, padding and tear out walls for mold quarantine