Yeah that's the little guy! So...we jump out of bed at 4 in the morning and run to the kitchen. We turn off the breaker. We search for a turn off valve on the water heater and can't find one. We turn off EVERY faucet in the house in hopes to stop the flow. By 4:45 we realize that there is no way to turn the water off inside. So...we take a flashlight that is barely working (the batteries are dying) and search the outside of our rental. Nope...nothing.
I try to call the landlord. He has his cell phone off. UGH! Right. So I get into my car and drive to his house which is just down the road. He doesn't answer after four knocks. I have no clue what to do so I decide to go back home. Going up a dirt hill, my car stalls. It barely starts. It chugs along home barely going. It apparently isn't my night! So...I get home...and my car is still acting up. There is still water gushing out. And I just want to sit in my car and cry. Well...my roommate is inside frustrated with the water heater. I am outside frustrated with my car.
I take a paint roller and a trash bag to shove into the hole that is gushing water. It stops most of the flow. My car on the other hand won't work. My husband gets stuck at work for the night...on a busy weekend (he works at a hotel). So he doesn't get any sleep. I get 30 minutes here and there waiting for the landlord's phone to be turned on.
Finally...at 11 o'clock his phone rings. It takes him two hours to come shut off the water. Maybe he thought "There is water gushing out of our water heater" as "We have a small leak." One thing down. I go to sleep for 2 hours. Unfortunately, I am so upset I cannot go back to sleep.
So...we go all day without water...without a car. And it's 5 a.m. the next morning. Roughly 24 hours after the water heater and my car broke down. I am sitting alone in almost darkness in my living room working on my novel. I hear taps against the lower portion of our rental. Okay...wild animal. No big deal. Then it climbs up on my porch. The screen door opens and BANG BANG BANG. I am startled. I go..."Who is it?" A woman's voice comes back mumbling her name. "What?" I say. She says her name. "I don't know you." AKA I am not coming to the door and go away. She says she knows that I don't know her. She says I have been walking forever. AND? I say in my mind. I refuse to open the door at night to people I don't know. Call it 4 years in a metropolitan city and a robbery on the doorstep incident.
She continues to knock for 15 minutes. When she starts messing with my door handle and trying to get into my house I call the police. Yeah...The one time I did. I slip into a bedroom and wake my roommate. He is on edge like me when he finds out why. The dispatcher asks me to look out the window to see if I can see her. That is when I notice she had gotten into my car. My door was open and the light was shining. Am I angry? OF COURSE! What type of person comes to someone elses house, bangs on the door, tries to come inside and breaks into a car at 5 in the morning? Apparently that woman does.
So the cops show up about 5 minutes after they are called. That's fine. We live in that type of area. The woman quit knocking like a minute before they get here. They search the neighborhood and can't find her. Like really? So I have no one to charge with breaking into my car. Nothing was stolen, but it's the principle.
Within 24 hours I had a water heater bust and flood my kitchen. My car breaking down. AND my home attempted to broken into and my car actually broken into. Just wow.
I have had such a STRESSFUL last few days.
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