Remember Lou being in hospital?
And I said she had a problem with her bedroom ceiling and I would post about it later?
Well, later has just arrived!
Lou noticed this damp patch on her ceiling a couple of months and reported it to the Housing Association. They came to inspect and assured her that it would be fixed - it was most likely a radiator from the neighbour.
So off she went on holiday, had a good time, came back, settled back into work then had that doozy of an asthma attack.
She got out of hospital and I told her that I felt that either she should stay here, or go back to the flat, as long as someone was with her. SO she went back there with Andrew and he stayed the night.
The next morning, on wakening up, they heard a drip.
Plop, plop on to stuff in the bedroom and the damp patch was getting bigger.
Now - after all our good weather, the rain had decided to arrive and obviously, it was getting in somewhere.
Now - I must explain, There is a kind of weirdness in the layout of the flats in Louise's close. (oh - I will explain for those who don't know - a close in a set of flats)
There are 4 flats in Lou's close and 2 shops on the bottom level. Lou lives on the 2nd level. The neighbour across the landing - she has a sort of maisonette type flat - so the loft space has been converted. Similar in the next close, one of the 2nd floor flats has loft space converted, but we were unsure which neighbour has the space above Lou's bedroom.
So Andrew decided to phone the emergency maintaince guy.
He comes out, moaning (he wanted a peaceful day) and says that there is nothing he can do, he can't access loft space, so nought doing.
And anyway - no roofer will go on the roof in this weather .
Andrew explained that Lou was just out of hospital after having a serious asthma attack, so really - they should do something.
But nothing.
The next day, after spending the night at Andrew's, Lou phoned the housing, explained what had happed and asked if someone would come and look.
So her dad waited in her flat ALL day - no one arrived. The excuse was that they had several calls for help and just couldn't get to her.
But duh - she had been in hospital, she couldn't risk staying there.
So next day, Paul went to stay. Someone did call in and said he'd send a humidifier to try and dry it out, so he had to wait in.
By the next day, Lou was getting mad - she had a couple of things that needed seen to in the house - aside from the damp patch, so the maintaince supervisor said he'd be there. One thing got taken care of, but the damp patch -if we hadn't laughed we'd have cried.
Now - let me just say, Noah must have left this guy out of the ark for a reason - the reason - he just didn't want to listen to a wummin!!!
He kept saying that it couldn't possibly come from a loft space because Lou is on the 2nd floor.
But in her close, the loft space is above the 2nd floor.
We must have told him this about 4 times, but he just kept telling us NO!!
(now - you would think the lack of stairs beyond Lou's flat would have indicated that he was on the top floor, but no - he just wasn't for buying it!!!)
We asked about getting the ceiling repaired after it had dried out.
No - we don't do that. You'll have to wait till the ceiling collapses in on you and then you have to pay the repairs!!.
Fizzing doesn't even come close!
So workmen were summoned to fix the issue in the kitchen and the drip in the bedroom.
Typical - you wait for a man for months, then 5 arrive in a couple of hours!!!
They all - to a man - agreed that the supervisor was an idiot and he'd only been promoted to keep him out of the way of dangerous tools!!!
The guy who came to look at the ceiling was great. He had a look and then said he'd get up into what part of the loft space he could and see what he could do.
A while later, he came back - he said that a couple of the tiles at the dormer window were out of place and wet - even if this wasn't the problem, it wouldn't have helped, so he sorted them
He went on to say that another problem could be a pipe leaking, but he couldn't see any pipes for above, so the only way that could be found would be to take down part of the ceiling.
We laughed and asked who'd pay for repairs - he said the Housing, since they were trying to resolve a problem. We explained about the other guy and he laughed - don't worry came the reply - if we have to do it that way, it will get done - and we will make right .
But he did say that we should wait to see if any more water came though, use the humidifier to dry it and take it from there.
So at last - a man who could. For the moment anyway.
Eventually Lou moved back in. No more drips - yet.
But if there are - we know what to do!!!
