no no no no NO!

I woke up this morning and went into the kitchen. I'm always worried about the dishwasher leaking on to the floor. Kinda like I worry about the base of a toilet leaking. (Marilyn, you have a warped mind, I told myself.)

Hhmm...where did that water come from? Normally, I start saying 'no no no no NO NO NOOO! But I didn't this time.

I opened the cabinets under the kitchen sink, and the water was dripping at a pretty good clip. I pulled out the cleaning stuff in the cabinet. I tried to turn it off and sure enough....I found myself holding pieces of the fixture in my hands.

Bucket...no. Tupperware was closer. I put that under the steady drip.

I continued to get the cleaning stuff Then I realized a pile of dish towels was within arm's length in another cabinet.  I grabbed them and threw them near the sink and started mopping up the wet floors with my dish-towel lined feet. 

For decades we've had a piece of vinyl flooring laying on the bottom of the sink-cabinet, unattached to anything. Of course, there happened to be a 2 inch square hole in the middle of the vinyl piece, apparently done within the last 40 years. Good move, Schumacher's, I told myself. I tossed the vinyl outside to dry.

I wanted to call a contractor/plumber but this particular morning all I could do was leave messages...it was only 8am.

OK! Yes! I do have a variety of electric fans! I pulled out one from my closet and the other from the laundry room to dry the base of the cabinet. Those provided plenty of fan/air power.

I called one of my favorite local general contractors...and he came over, and then called a worker to meet him here. I don't speak Chinese and the worker didn't speak English. But as a plumber and a client, we greeted each other with open arms and smiles. And when he left, I hugged him again.

I've booked a couple of vendors for my next jobs:
-Breathable (air duct cleaners)
-Mike's Screens (to add screens for one of the apartments that have casement windows)
-need a handyman to check out all of the water fixtures throughout the building and rip out the old caulking and replace it with new (and water test it, unlike a favorite plumber whose assistant didn't do that, so a slow drip came through the brand new plaster in the ceiling)
-need a concrete guy to fix the side walkway, which I can see is sinking, where the sump pump pumps out a ton of water into the front yard. 
-and last but not least, need a plasterer to fill the hole in the ceiling entryway.

And there always will be more to do.

live richly, marilyn

 take a look at my Alameda Real Estate blog....marilynschumacher.com

(aka The Second Story)