Kitchen And Bathroom Leaks- Need Answer Fast!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I will try to keep this short. On January tenth, I flew to Florida. I had two trusted friends who live a few blocks away pick up my mail. On Tuesday, I received a text from building management. ‘In order to prevent pipes from freezing, please leave faucets dripping’. This had not been necessary in either of the buildings I have lived in before. This was the first time management had told me it would be necessary. So, I had not left the faucets dripping. I had left the three radators on HI. I immediately texted my friends and asked them to leave the kitchen sink, bathroom sink, and tub faucet dripping. They said that they could not do it until the next day. I mistakenly told my family (I was visiting my sister and SIL) about the text. They repeatedly and vehemently said I must notify maintenance to do it. I strongly did not want to tell them that-

Maintenance is monstrously lax and incompetent. I made a list of simple repairs that needed to be done when I moved the first load of boxes in. This was at least two weeks before I moved the rest of my stuff in and started living in this apartment. None of the repairs were ever done. Whlile moving in more of my stuff, we smelled gas. The team from the local gas company found an internal leak in the oven/range. They shut off the gas to the oven/range. I notified maintenance that I needed a repair, or more likely a new oven/range. They said they would get right on it. I asked if while they were in my apartment to put in a new oven, they could do the other repairs I had asked about. They said they were worried that would be ‘too intrusive’ now that I was all moved in and living in the apartment. I asked if they could replace the oven, and fix the lock on my mailbox. That had been on the original list of repairs, and they wouldn’t need to enter my apartment to do it. They never responded.

I really have been decluttering, donating stuff to Goodwill, and giving stuff to friends. The bedroom is mostly filled with four feet high stacks of boxes. Tall stacks of boxes line the full length of one side of the hallway. The lease explicitly says that management can break the lease and evict me in case of “extreme hoarding”. They do not define that or go into any detail. Would they look at my apartment, say it is “extreme hoarding” and evict me? I dunno.

So, I did not want maintenance in my apartment. The next day, my friends came and set all the faucets to drip. On Thusday, one of my friends picked up my mail and a new laptop I had delivered, he found a large leak under the kitchen sink. He tunrd off a valve or two, mopped up all the water, put a bucket under the leak, and informed me by messages and a photo. There are two ‘hoses’ connected to the faucet. They are thick white plastic with some kind of metal mesh reinforcement. One has a hole and looks to have burst from the inside.

Did a pipe freeze? Did rodents (I have a rodent problem) gnaw a hole in the hose? Or was it just a piece of crap that finally gave out? Since I moved in, water gushes from the base of the faucet if you turn the water on too high. The faucet does not shut off unless you position the lever part in the exact right spot, slightly right of center.

Today, my beloved picked me up at the airport and drove me home. When I entered the bathroom, there was a lot of water on the floor. I opened the cabinet under the sink. Everything in it was bone dry. We did not see any openings or discolorations in the wall- that wall has the kitchen sink on the other side. My beloved is much better and faster at cleaning than I am. She mopped. We threw out the soaked bath mat and all the paper towels she had used. We still cannot say where the water came from. I called my friends. They confirmed that they had checked the bathroom yesterday. There was no leak then. In my first apartment, a leak from my upstairs neighbor’s shower/tub ran across the other side of my bathroom ceiling, and dripped out of the fan vent over the toilet. It is possible that the water came from the vent in my bathroom ceiling. It doesn’t seem likely though.

I need to know- What happened? (I will upload and link to a photo of the burst hose soon) When did it happen? And most importantly- is it my fault for waiting that one night rather than calling maintenace?

I have been (seriously and without exaggeration) fighting a panic attack since I found the second leak. I would greatly appreciate any information the Dope can provide.

2

A few months ago the same thing happened in the condo I own, where a tenant lives. She notified me that something was leaking under the sink. It turned out to be the hot water line into the sink valve—the hose that is connected to the sink, not the pipe that is connected to the building.

I turned off the hot water at the cutoff valve under the sink, and that stopped the leak. The hose is integrated into the sink valve, so it isn’t a simple repair, but Pfister has a lifetime warranty, so they sent me a whole new assembly for free.

So, at least in my case, I had a similar leak, and it was definitely not caused by freezing or apparent abuse. The faucet was probably 25 years old, and my guess is the hose had split due to age.

3

Those kinds of hoses sometimes just fail. I had a friend who had the same thing happen. Whatever that plastic is eventually degrades or gets brittle and cracks. One thing that might contribute to the failure is if the water pressure has lots of variation. The hose will expand and contract slightly when the pressure changes, which can lead to failures. Fortunately, it’s a relatively easy fix. Those hoses are typically designed to be taken off and put back on with just a regular wrench. HOWEVER, there’s a caveat about doing it yourself since this is a rental. If you replace it and anything ever goes wrong, they’ll blame you no matter if it’s your fault or not. So if the hose bursts because it’s defective, the landlord may put the blame on you. Repairs in a rental should generally be done by the landlord, not by the renter.

4

Thanks. I did not want to use up all the bottles of water I save for trips. I do not want to drink water form bathroom sink. So, I checked to see if I could get water out of the kitchen sink.

It does seem to be the hot water hose that broke. I have no worried about the cost or compelxity of the repairs. If management decides it was my fault, I will likely be evicted. If I can somehow prove it was not my fault, the lease should require maintenance to make the repair and pay for it themselves.

Note-

I was just in the bathroom again, There is a crack in the ceiling. It is several inches long and above the tub. If a pipe above my bathroom ceiling and below my upstairs neighbor’s bathroom floor burst, it would explain the crack. If the water either ran down the the exterior of the ceiling or came out the vent in the center of the ceiling, that would explain why I cannot find the source of the leak.

5

Thanks! I read my lease thorougly after I moved in.‘Maintenance must be notified of any needed repairs. If you hire an outside contractor or attempt repairs yoursefl without giving maintenance ample time to fix the problem, management will not be responsible for any costs and you may be in violation fo your lease.’

6

Definitely a maintainance issue. Rodents, freezing or whatever.

Call them in.
I know you don’t want to. They should fix it on their dime. You’re not responsible for freezing pipes. Them asking you to keep water dripping is low class. Those pipes going in or out should be insulated.
Especially in an apartment complex.

The ceiling cracking is concerning. Apparently that apartment above had problems.

I thought only southerners did the dripping faucet thing in a freeze warning.

7

Don’t know if this is related …
My mum had a small basin with lever faucets…
A bit like this

but with levers instead of the turny thing.
They had round pipes, but the hole in the basin was square (!?) so not a good seal.
One time, someone didn’t turn the faucet off fully, and water ran down the
underside of the faucet - due to surface tension or witchcraft or
something - and through the square hole onto the floor.

8

Most places I’ve lived in Indiana have notified tenants to leave faucets dripping during cold snaps.

The one place that didn’t happened to be a place that was water-included, and sent out notes to all the units saying “PLEASE DO NOT leave faucets dripping!! our pipes are below the freeze-line, or heated and insulated, and WILL NOT FREEZE!”

They were pretty concerned about paying for all the water down the drain because most people were used to leaving water dripping.

The solution before about 1960 was just to bury the pipes below the freeze-line and insulate them when they had to be above it. Heated lines I’ve seen pretty much in post-1970s buildings in this state.

Since there aren’t too many days a years when pipes could burst, leaving them to trickle occasionally in a house isn’t a big deal, and isn’t even in a smaller rental built before 1970, vs. the cost of renovation, but complexes and high-rises are generally designed to take advantage of the building’s size to protect pipes. And in those cases, there are a enough people that we’re talking a lot of water.