The day the sky fell

Well, almost literally.

I went to bed over half past two this morning, and just as I was falling asleep, I was jolted back awake upon hearing a loud crash, like something falling, and then a heavy downpour of rain. The crash sounded like right above me, and I worried that a tree might have fallen into the roof. Hearing no other sounds, I settled back down. I was actually giggling to myself, thinking I was a ditz for getting scared.

Rain inside my room at three in the morning

Rain inside my room at three in the morning

And then I realized that the raindrops were loud…and rather disturbingly too close. I snapped on my lamp and, lo and behold, my left wall was leaking. From the ceiling. Streaks of water, some of them grimy. What happened to the roof?!

I hurried and got my towel and started piling it against the wall. Then the portion of the wall near my aircon unit started leaking too. Badly. No help for it– I got one of my rugs and put it under. As I stood up… my ceiling light started gushing. Gushing! Think of an old shower with the sprinkler not evenly releasing water. Turn to high water volume. My ceiling light became a damn showerhead.

Rushed off to get a pail. Noticed the water splashes near my desk, panicked at the extension there, and went to turn it off at the socket. Looked back into the waterfall. Not enough. Rushed off to get more pails, including the top of my laundry container. It should hold for a while. Water not lessening, and what will happen if the ceiling can’t take the weight and starts to crack?! Whisked off my Macbook into my closet, wondering if I should hide it elsewhere. Pails almost full, need to bring it to the bathroom. Ooof, laundry container top too big and heavy, sloshed water around. Resort to moving off water from container top into one of the smaller pails. Pails under control again. Stare blankly at the disaster.

Rinse and repeat.

At around half past four, or maybe closer to 5am, the downpour lessened. I lied back down on the bed, completely exhausted and dreadfully wanting sleep, but not daring to sleep because what if the rain starts up again? I open and close my eyes. At six I kept telling myself, I will get up in a few minutes to take a bath, then call my landlady at 7am. Seven rolls around, and I give up trying to get up from the bed, since it’s Faye’s turn at the bathroom.

Round two. Water splashing everywhere :(

Round two. Water splashing everywhere :(

And then the rain starts up again. PANIC. Rearrange pails. Look out of my window to see how bad the rain is. But…wait. There’s no rain. Wut?

No time to wonder. Room downpour getting worse. Wall dripping extending throughout the whole length of the wall, increasingly heavy. Time to move furniture, so I push and shove things around to the other side of the room, wipe down where needed. Pails and containers filling up far too fast. Dammit. What now?

Apparently, it’s not the rain. It’s our water tank, which is situated above our ceiling and below the roof. Closing off the water keeps my room safe. Opening it, even if it’s being used, transforms my room into a waterfall resort. The water tank person (lol) who came by in the morning found out that the pressure tank rusted and fell clean off (which is the loud crash I heard). Our hallway was also affected, with the water leaking off the hallway light fixtures as well (it cartainly put me into a panic when I opened the hallway light to go downstairs to get a mop).

It looks like this has happened in some form before, since one of our neighbors very kindly turned off the water for us the first time the room downpour happened; although that incident seems to have been more of an overflow, which meant using the water wouldn’t cause an overflow with the water on. Well, we learned otherwise. The hard way, lol.

As I am flying to Jakarta tomorrow on business, I needed to pick up a couple of things from the office, so after getting an hour’s sleep, and making sure things were in relative control, I was off. And very shortly after I left the house, the rain started. Zomg. I had rain inside my room for most of the morning and now I even have rain outside my house?!

My landlady and the repairmen came by again to replace the water tank while I was out. Elvie says our landlady even went and mopped up my room with clean water <3 although portions still feel pretty sticky, and my floor needs a good coat of wax, I daresay. It will have to be next week. I still haven’t packed up my luggage, too. QQ. So now I need to get some semblance of order back into my room, make sure floor and furniture is dry, pack up, get a few meetings out of the way, and get some sleep (!!).

(Photos and more photo commentary at the Flickr set.)

Well, at least I got my tees from the last Threadless shopping spree I had. <3

4 comments

  • You remind me of eyore with the dark cloud perpetually over his head. Hope your landlord did something already..

    • Yes, they were quite lovely and helped clean up. They haven’t asked us to pay for anything, though from what I understand from my housemate it seems that there was a bit of discussion on that. I’ll know in a couple of days, maybe.

  • Ooh, the ceiling in the hallway of my old apartment started raining once. It must’ve been horrifying for it to happen in your bedroom though!! Hope there wasn’t too much damage to your ceiling, floor and furniture!

    • My friends keep saying it would have been CLASSIC to have the water dumped right on me while I was sleeping. Worthless friends. LOL XD

      Nothing compares to the fear I felt when I did think that a tree fell on our roof, though. I kept wondering what would happen when the weight just wasn’t enough on softened wood and when my whole ceiling would start crashing down on me and my things.

      And the crazy thing is, I was worrying more about keeping my Macbook dry than keeping myself dry, haha! Damn, that Macbook is a spoiled brat.

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