It started innocently enough with my wife Joanne noticing a few drops of water on our kitchen floor in Murrieta and wiping it up.
“OK, who spilled the water?” she wondered.
Twenty minutes later, the drops returned. Nobody had been in the kitchen.
Joanne’s mind instantly went to the worst possible scenario, which in the zillions of tract homes of southwest Riverside County built in the past 40 years can only mean the two most-dreaded words — slab leak!
I pooh-poohed the notion because I’m an optimist — often foolishly — such as this time.
I walked around early the next morning, two days before Christmas, doing my “stair laps” in the dark (another story for another time) and I didn’t feel anything wet as I strode through the kitchen.
Maybe we dodged the home-repair bullet, I was thinking.
Joanne was up about 20 minutes later and so much for my hopes. She found the water was back and now in the hallway, too. Oh joy.
A plumber arrived at 7:30 in the morning – Joanne contacted him the night before — and he confirmed the bad news. He said insurance won’t cover plumbing bills, so more holiday joy.
As Scrooge/Grinch as the moment was, it was also not surprising. All four neighbors in the immediate vicinity in our tract in Murrieta have endured leaks, caused by aging, and cheaper, copper pipes that the builder used. Now that standard is plastic, which is more durable. Not that it does us any good right now.
After the leak was fixed, the plumber found another one, but he had to come back another day. In the meantime, the restoration people were here with their wind tunnels, I mean, fans. Think jet-engine noise, all in our kitchen, which meant cooking wasn’t exactly ideal.
We could have gone out, but we were looking at least $10,000 to fix the damage and meet our insurance deductible, so frozen pizza it was.
At least we could stay in our house. A neighbor had her leak upstairs and her family had to evacuate the house for six months. And as I went around substitute teaching in Murrieta schools and shared my holiday news, I heard similar stories over and over.
It’s almost like a rite of passage. You’re not really a local unless your home has flooded – and I don’t mean by Murrieta Creek.
Our house was built in 1989, 35 years ago, a long time. Many, many thousands of tract homes were built in southwest Riverside County at the same time. We were all lured by the promises of small-town life, wide-open spaces, safe streets and good schools. Some of that stuff is still true today.
Slab leaks weren’t part of the enticing developer brochures. Not that the builders are necessarily at fault either. After three decades and counting, things start to go wrong with any house.
In the meantime, Joanne was out of the country for another six weeks visiting India (another story for another time), which meant I couldn’t touch a thing in terms of reconstruction because all happily married couples know it’s the wife who calls the shots in rebuilding a kitchen.
Our remodeled kitchen of a decade ago was now demolished. Most of the kitchen drawers sat in our living room. Chunks of drywall were gone, leaving the new plastic piping exposed, water flowing safely again. Another chunk of wall where we penciled in the measurements of our kids Julia and David as they grew was also gone. Leaking pipes are merciless, memories be damned.
I’m also stuck with bad dreams (One was that our ceiling was raining, meaning the ultimate in leaks) and mounting bills because we’ve also decided to pay the plumber another $5,000 to finish re-piping the whole house and presumably prevent this from happening again.
Fingers crossed, checkbook at the ready.
Reach Carl Love at carllove4@yahoo.com
www.pressenterprise.com
https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/02/01/plumbing-problems-mar-holidays-in-one-murrieta-home/
