Thank God I was too lazy to have cleaned my bathroom

Well so much for continuing my streak of managing to get a full seven hours of uninterrupted sleep and therefore not feel like crap at work. There was drama Chez Fish last night kids. There I was, settled on the sofa, relaxed and awaiting the start of The Daily Show when I heard a noise coming from the vicinity of my kitchen and bathroom – my bathroom is off my kitchen. You’ve gotta love the bizarrely confabulated apartments of New York City.

Cautiously I went to investigate…

Urk…water, horribly disgusting dirty brown water, was pouring, nay gushing it was like someone had turned a faucet on full, through my bathroom ceiling directly through the light fitting.

Not good!!

I emptied a bucket full of cleaning equipment onto the kitchen floor and positioned it where the stream was strongest to try and catch most of the water, although it was coming through everywhere, before dashing upstairs to let my neighbour know what was happening. I could hear water running as I stood outside her door waiting for someone to answer the bell and assumed she was in the shower, unaware of the fact that she was flooding my bathroom, but then I heard footsteps and a loud ‘oh my God.’

She fumbled with the lock and opened the door looking stunned. She motioned me inside to see her bathroom. If mine was gushing, hers was like Niagara Falls. I had about 3inches of water on the floor of my bathroom seeping out into the kitchen, but there was easily 4times the volume pouring through her bathroom ceiling. She hadn’t been aware of it until I knocked on her door as she’d gone to bed at 10pm and was fast on. I left her standing there shocked in her pyjamas as I dashed upstairs to the sixth floor, the top floor of the building, and hammered on the door of #28.

No answer.

Visions of someone having slipped and knocked themselves out cold - or worse - with the tap running ran through my head.

I’ve watched too many episodes of CSI I really have.

As I ran back downstairs to phone the landlady I ran into Vinny, her brother who lives in the apartment below me and owner of the pizzeria. He ran in to check the state of my bathroom before dashing off to turn the water off and see what was going on with number #28, while I was left to soak up as much of the water I could with old beach towels.

Finally the water abated and Vinny returned to check on the light fixture in my bathroom and check for any the damage. Vinny is not by any stretch a small man, he’s well built and of ample girth and unfortunately as he bent down to examine the floor his trousers slipped and I was given a full on flash of his big hairy arse. Ugh!! That was the cherry on top of this particular Tuesday evening sundae I can tell you. It’s a wonder I didn’t have nightmares.

Fortunately there was nothing serious and we didn’t have to call in Gil Grissom and team. The pre-teen kid of the family in the apartment on the 6th floor had been taking a bath as the rest of the family slept and had managed to flood the bathroom. Vinny told me that the water had gone through all the apartments below them and had even leaked through the ceiling of the pizzeria on the ground floor. No permanent damage, but I was up late cleaning the mess up and my apartment has that uniquely stale aroma that can only come from being doused in the used bathwater of a pre-teen boy and then filtered through 2floors of a pre war apartment building.

Joy!!