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Hopeless in an 'emergency'

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Over the past 12 months or so there have been afew incidences where the way I've responded has got me paranoid that I don't deal well in unexpected situations. Just curious to know what others would do in the following situation? ..... you live in a ground floor flat and shortly before 5am your hubby wakes you to inform you that there is water over the kitchen floor which is coming from one of the spotlights above. You notice water continuously dripping from the spotlight and circles of damp around it. You know the kitchen and bathroom of the upstairs flat is directly above your kitchen. What would you do?

Comments

  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Turn off the spotlight (perhaps turn off power to the room from the breaker box) put a bucket below the leak and once "morning" comes, knock on the neighbour's door and tell them what's happening, expecting them to get the problem fixed.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Turn off the spotlight (perhaps turn off power to the room from the breaker box) put a bucket below the leak and once "morning" comes, knock on the neighbour's door and tell them what's happening, expecting them to get the problem fixed.

    This is what I'd probably do

    Although I am the worse person in any type of emergency situation! Ha, not good as a nurse! :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Turn off the spotlight (perhaps turn off power to the room from the breaker box) put a bucket below the leak and once "morning" comes, knock on the neighbour's door and tell them what's happening, expecting them to get the problem fixed.

    Well this is exactly what I did except I woke the neighbours up at about 5:15, partly due to the fact that I leave for work early so I couldn't leave it until much later. They said they would arrange for their landlord to come and have a look when we got back from work as we went into their flat and could see no obvious signs of where the water was coming from. When the landlord came round he gave me the impression that he thought we had over reacted as he literally came in to look at the light, said something about yeh it is what he suspected, the boiler is broken and it was the pipes under the floorboards, and was shrugging it off and saying that the water would eventually stop dripping once he had fixed it. Then when my hubby returned from work he apologised to the neighbours for us waking them and although they said they didn't mind and they would have done the same thing, I got the impression they didn't mean it which has got me questioning about the way I deal with situations. Thinking about it I was assuming that their washing machine was leaking or something like that, but in hindsight if it was a major leak then water would not just have been coming out of one spotlight (we have 4) so waking them up at 5:15 seems pretty silly now.

    It's happened now so not much point me worrying about it, it's just that I wish I thougt more rationally about certain things! And the couple living above us are a fair bit younger than me and my hubby and I feel like they dealt with the situation much better than we did (but then again they rent their flat and we own ours so perhaps we would naturally be more concerned about things going wrong). Also, it seems that this sort of problem is not rare at all, it happens all the time but I had never heard of it before. Looking back over other things that have happened before and how I've overacted seems to be really bothering me!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's not an overreaction to try and find where the leak is coming from and try to ge the water turned off immediately, that's normal. Imagine if you'd left it and it was as simple as an overflowing tap, or something that the neighbours could have turned off, to have not told them would have been negligent.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    It's not an overreaction to try and find where the leak is coming from and try to ge the water turned off immediately, that's normal. Imagine if you'd left it and it was as simple as an overflowing tap, or something that the neighbours could have turned off, to have not told them would have been negligent.

    When you put it like that I guess you're right, there are a number of things it could have been and they wouldn't have been impressed if we had left it a while and caused further damage. I was concerned as water and electric aren't a good mix either!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Water causes almost as much damage as fire, so telling your neighbours isn't unreasonable. I would have waited until *just* before I went to work though, maybe 5am is a bit early.
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