Bathroom and wet walls update – August 11, 2019
Finally getting back to my blog! I always miss it so much. But I’m horribly unable to post as long as I’m feeling anxious. The bathroom problem kept my anxiety high for no real reason, but my anxiety is always over the top for every little worry. I wish I could get rid of it. Though most of the time I’m fine, so I’m actually lucky.
Anyway, I seem to be in a much better headspace today, thanks to my awesome Ralph, who constantly reminds me that there is nothing to worry about at all.
The Bathroom and the wet walls
Last time I left off shortly before somebody was coming by to look for the source of the humidity in the walls of the hallway/stairwell. Back then, we had no idea what to expect and we thought in the worst case we could have a total construction site in our bathroom.
Thankfully that’s not the case. The contractor from a company specialising in finding leaks in buildings and fixing it came by on July 22. He measured the humidity, measured the position of the wet spots in the stairwell and measured the position of the taps in the bathroom and some other things. It seems the humidity comes from the shower tap, and it’s not a broken water pipe. There are apparently two things wrong.
One is the plate that should protect the area behind it and the inside of the wall from shower water:
So this plate was not sealed off properly and every time we had a shower, water would get behind it and into the wall. In addition, the tap itself drips slightly when the water is turned on. So both things together caused humidity to collect and cause the wet stains in the hallway/stairwell outside.
Though, there have been stains like that already before that have been here since before we even moved in. So what happened was probably that the stains were caused by the woman who lived in our apartment before us already. But after she moved out, the apartment was empty for quite a while and so the stains dried and so nobody worried about it (knowing the building will be renovated in the near future).
Therefore when we moved in, those already existing stains became wet again slowly over time. So, of course, no one noticed, since you would have to look closely to notice that the stains are humid. It probably was the people from the company that cleans the building that called the building management about the humidity in the stains.
That means that the tap has to be changed to a new one and the new plate needs to be properly sealed. Since it was not our fault that is was like that and because there was nothing you would have noticed from inside our apartment, I felt that we should not really have to pay for the changing of the tap. Which is why I contacted the building management about it.
Shortly afterwards, somebody from our landlord called us because he wanted to have a look at the problem himself and talk to us. He came round and wasn’t really worried about it. I just showed him where it was and what had to be done. He said that they will sort it out. He also told me that the stains all over in the stairwell have been there for years.
Then on Friday afternoon, I got a call from the landlord’s insurance company about it. He asked me about it all again and he also needs to come by and have a look at it, which will be on Tuesday morning. Of course, that caused me anxiety to spike again…
I just want it to be over with and fixed, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Back when the contractor came on July 22, the cats really had a difficult and confusing morning…
Since I had no idea what to expect and because I took a possible construction site with multiple workmen into consideration, I moved all the cat’s stuff into the bed and living room and the hallway in between. Then I closed the door, so they could not get into the rest of the apartment (hallway, kitchen, bathroom, toilet…)
Needless to say… they weren’t exactly happy. They were totally confused as to what’s going on.
Yes, Sonic was totally confused as to why his toilet is over there all of a sudden. Also, the water fountain had moved a bit and the cat food has moved from it’s the normal spot to the right of the cat fountain. In addition, Murli’s big bed moved from the kitchen to this little table in the corner.
Murli’s toilet moved into the bedroom… (Samantha goes on both toilet btw, it’s only Murli and Sonic that keep to their fav ones.)
While the door to the rest of the apartment was still open, Murli walked around and was really confused as to why her toilet was gone after having a look inside. The slightly open door you see is the door to our toilet. The human toilet, which is where her toilet usually is.
Also, my bicycle, which is normally in our rather wide hallway, was now on the balcony.
So after finishing off with moving everything, I closed the door to keep the cats in the bedroom and living room area. There was lots of meowing and scratching at the door from Murli. Sonic and Samantha just sat in front of it quietly for a while. All of them looked thoroughly confused.
But thankfully it did not take long at all. So I was able to put everything back to normal soon later again.
The contractor will come to measure the humidity in the walls again a while later after the tap in our shower has been replaced with a new one and the plate sealed. If the humidity decreases after that, then it will be clear that it was just the shower tap causing the wet walls.
We’ve got household insurance now!
I finally got us household insurance, and I found a really great one too by comparing all household insurances and insurance companies. I should have done that a long time ago really. This insurance protects us really well. If I had gotten it much sooner, it would have covered anything we might have to pay to get the tap changed. We might not have to pay anything, it all depends on what the landlord’s insurance company will do after the appointment on Tuesday morning. Still, I feel much better just having it now. It’s not even expensive at all, which is awesome.
I’m working on a second post right now, because it would have been way too much to put everything in one single post.
Hope you all had a nice weekend and have a wonderful remaining Sunday!
