fuckin' leak

On my kitchenette's counter, there are the burners that I never use, way over on the far left. To the immediate right of that is part of where I stack my washed dishes to drip-dry. Next to that is a tiny bit of free counter space, and then there's the sink. This evening, a bit before 11 p.m., I went over to the kitchenette for something, and I saw that the paper towels under the dish-drying area were soaked. Dafuq? I looked all around for the source of the leak, especially scrutinizing the ceiling. Couldn't see a damn thing. So, shrugging, I wiped up the water with several other paper towels, sprayed the area down with Windex, and "pondered" the problem by letting my mind wander. My eye caught a few stray drops hanging from beneath the small cabinet doors that sit above my range's electric-fan setup. And that's when it hit me: the leak was coming from the upstairs apartment, probably their clothes washer. So I'm about to find out whether the maintenance guys who work on pipes are available at this time of night.

my humble kitchenette; note the large Greek-yogurt cup positioned to catch drips (the silver bowl, too)

I changed out the sopping paper towels.

a look at the leaking water, mixed with grease from my stovetop fan

more than one leak as the water spreads over flat surfaces

under the fan—peekaboo

This is as far as the fan will pull out. I wiped part of the water away, but a lot of it remains.

I'm paranoid about water mixing in with an electrical system, so I don't think this can wait until the morning. Expect an update.

UPDATE 1: the maintenance office was open. The guy is coming right up.

UPDATE 2: the guy is here, and a second guy came up about two minutes later. I explained the problem; the first guy opened up the tiny "crawlspace" panel (you can't really crawl through the "crawlspace") and has been having a look around. The crawlspace itself seems more or less dry, but I showed the guy the same evidence of the leak that I had photographed above. The second guy has gone to check on the apartment above mine. I feel bad for those people, who probably don't even know they've got a leak. The first guy just told me he's going to join the second guy upstairs. Since the leak obviously started above me, it makes sense that most of the repair work to be done should be done upstairs to prevent it from happening again.

UPDATE 3: the guys came back, and they just left. They told me there's currently no one upstairs (or maybe the upstairs people do what I do when I get a random knock: stay quiet until the knocker goes away), but that the repairs will ultimately all have to be done upstairs. There's not much to be done here except to wait for the repair guys to contact the above apartment, make the repairs, and tell me when they've finished. They've got my name and number now, so I hope to get a text from them (i.e., the repair guys, not the above apartment) soon. Not much else for me to do except to sop up the water that's already dripped down onto the kitchenette's fan.