at least once a month there's a mini-flood in my kitchen. i live on the third floor so that is ironic.
the water does not come from rain. it comes from our overflowing water tank. normally, when the tank overflows, the water just falls on the sink in the laundry area. when it's left overflowing for too long, however, the pressure shoots the water beyond the sink up to the opposite wall where it bounces off toward the kitchen.
month after month, whenever i don't get home early enough, there's water on my kitchen floor.
the first time it happened, yearS back, i told my dad. he and my brother are the ones who open the valve to fill the tank. (my parents live just a few meters away. my brother and his family live on the floors below mine.) i've raised it once. i've raised it twice. i've raised it thrice. it still keeps on recurring. i don't really like to repeat myself over and over and over again so eventually i just stopped raising it and just learned to live with an occasionally flooded kitchen.
and never-drying laundry, too. i've thrown away a heap of clothes because they've developed spots daily getting wet by the overflowing water. call me stubborn but i don't want to hang my laundry anywhere else. my place is small. the only appropriate spot for my laundry is really the laundry area. nope, i don't want my clothes in the dryer. i prefer them sun-dried.
i've thought of several ways to contain the water but the air-tight ones would mean inconveniencing others. i don't want that. the real solution really would be to close the valve soon enough.
i transferred to the place in november 2011. on my first night there, i already heard the overflowing tank. i got up and traced the sound to the laundry area where i saw water running from this pipe protruding from the water tank overhead. i didn't know how to stop it and i didn't want to wake anyone up thinking this must not be the first time it happened so i just went back to bed. following day, i learned how to close the valve.
well, guess what, every single morning after that, i'd hear the water overflowing and i'd get up and close the valve. i'd return to bed and then later i'd hear the water overflow again and i'd close the valve again. day after day it was like that.
i told my dad and my brother to decide who between them would open the valve and i'd just be the one to close. still daily for five years i'd get up twice in the mornings (at times within minutes of each other!) and rush through three flights of stairs to close the valve because the water overflows.
then last year, i go to my parents' place and my dad was mad at me. he said the tank went empty because i closed the valve.
eh? i just got home. i was out. i could not have been the one who closed it.
still he kept on berating me saying i'm the one who keeps on closing the valve.
oh, ok. from then on, i decided not to touch the valve. let the water flow where it may.
it's been the story of my life to fill in things others who are supposed to do them leave out. i guess sometimes you have to leave people on their own to make them realize that some things go together: open-close, on-off, borrow-return, fall-rise, breakup-make up (wahehe... okay, okay... the last one is not always a pair). you forget that and there'd be rain... initially in my place... eventually on your parade... ; p
No comments:
Post a Comment