I had a hairy six weeks. Not a good time. I’m not sure how I got through. I think I kept being grateful that we weren’t being hit by those constant hurricanes hitting the Gulf and we weren’t being burned out by fires like on the west coast. That kept me going, but I did have problems here.

For three weeks, I had no a/c. And that’s fine, the issue was having so many a/c guys in and out trying to fix the problem, then trying to install the new system on the roof and other things, but as that was winding down and I got my new a/c system installed, I discovered a leak. I am three floors down from the roof, so I assumed it was my toilet or something. It originated in one of the bathrooms and leaked under the floor into one of the bedrooms. The one saving grace was that it was a bathroom and bedroom I don’t use. A spare room and a spare bathroom!

Well, the leak was coming from my neighbor above, but he had the leak too, coming from above him – from the penthouse.

So in these past three weeks, the water flowed – non stop. We had dozens of “experts” here and spent thousands of dollars to find the source of the leak. Leak detectors, insurance people, plumbers, air conditioning people – in and out for three weeks, revolving door here.

One source was thought to be our messy, wet roof. Another were the a/c lines condensating down from the roof. We were up on the roof, up in the penthouse, breaking walls here and there. And all that while the water flowed! I barely left the house. I met with the non-stop flow of experts and was afraid to leave the non-stop flow of water.

I literally dumped 30 to 40 gallons a day. I vacuumed it up with a wet/dry vac and counted each time I dumped the five gallon tank. It was never ending. For three weeks, I slept an hour, got up, vacuumed up the water and went to bed – I got up after two hours and did the same and so on and so on. Talk about stress!

This went on for three weeks. As people came and went and opined on what the source was, handed us with big bills, no one seemed to do a thing. And I vacuumed up water 24/7 – literally. I didn’t have a life. I threw out so many things that were ruined. And it got so bad that my big lighting fixture and mirror fell off the bathroom wall. The walls were so saturated that everything just sort of melted!

The water then started seeping into my bedroom wall, where the tv is hanging. I kept waiting for the whole 55 inch tv to fall off the wall. Thankfully that didn’t happen.

In the end, after dozens of visitors (experts?), dozens of sleepless nights, and hundreds of gallons of water, we had an a/c guy come and he found the leak – about 50 feet away from where we thought it was – under the toilet in the penthouse bathroom. There are about four bathrooms and this one is never used, as it emanated from their spare room, just like it ended up in my spare room!

The problem was fixed – hopefully – so far so good – this morning I woke up to a dry floor. No water flowing out. Nothing. So far so good. I am feeling thrilled now. Like I could fly. Like I could live!

I literally slept through the night last night, without having to wake up every hour or two to vacuum up the constant flow of water! Now it’s about restoration, but I can breathe now!