Oh man, I had a ceiling leak last year--the kind where a whole chunk of ceiling turns into to world's worst water balloon, waiting to pop and drench you with water.
It trickled from my upstairs walls to my kitchen ceiling, leaving destroyed plaster in its wake.
Insurance covered a new roof (old one was installed wrong??) and water mitigation (including a giant industrial dehumidifier--it dried ME out so much I started getting bloody noses) and repair. HOWEVER, they found lead paint, so instead of a quick & easy repair job, it required mitigation with walled off plastic partitions and took way longer.
Hopefully this makes you feel better?! It can happen to anyone, and sometimes there's dangerous paint. 0/10 would not recommend.
Our roof leaked so badly, one night during an average rainfall, we had water pouring down from the ceiling in every single room in the house. I thought it couldn't get worse until I saw water seeping in from the living room floorboards. The landlord hired a contractor who was on crack, and they dithered around until we lawyered up. Then, suddenly, a crew showed up, found the leaks, repaired them in three days, and all has been well ever since (knocking on miraculously mould-free wood). I hope the same for you.
My spouse and I rented a house with friends in the first couple years we were married. In early November, I went into the spare bedroom and noticed a sizeable water spot. I took pictures and sent them to the landlord. Next day, the spot had grown. We moved everything out of the room and laid down a tarp. Another call and email with pictures to the landlord. It started dripping the next day. Add buckets, more pictures, another call. Landlord finally says "I'll send someone out." Several more days, increasing bucket changes, calls to ask "when exactly is this person coming out?" Two days before Thanksgiving, there's a huge storm and we hear a big groan and crash - open the door to see a 4 foot section of ceiling has collapsed. Landlord finally sent someone out the Saturday after Thanksgiving - a crew came back the following Monday to tarp the roof, but then they disappeared and it was March before we had a new roof. Somehow, we still stayed in the house for another year.
I've always lived with fireflies, and I guess I assumed they were everywhere. I DEFEINITELY assumed they were everywhere in the midwest. But I guess I was wrong. One of my friends grew up kind of in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota, (okay, that's not helpful, the whole state is in the middle of nowhere). In her part of Middle of Nowhere, it's dry, no rivers or bodies of water. And she had never seen a lightning bug until she came here, to the southeast corner, by the river. Apparently, they like water. (But Oregon is so wet! Why are they not there!?)
Maybe I need to do some research into fireflies. But I'll definitely think about how magical they are the next time I see one.
(Side note: the upstairs bathroom at the office has a giant leak in the ceiling. Like, the ceiling is coming down. And roofers here are booked out for literal years. We have put a bucket under it and hope for the best. Please don't tell Boaz's mom.)
I adore your storytelling and segues like fireflies only shining their lights when flying up to water dripping down. 💕 I used to work in a cubicle space below the men’s county jail and sometimes the residents would purposely clog their toilets and it would cause leaking onto my desk, filing cabinet, etc. That was yucky. It was more than a strategically placed pickle jar could handle. I didn’t need to protest in the same manner to change desks, luckily. 😅
This is such a lovely post. I thought fireflies/ lightning bugs were everywhere; now I'll be more grateful for them. We have a leaky roof & rain coming in through the ceiling. And a basement that flooded (again) this summer.
It rained inside my house - below and above the window frame and it took us months to figure out what it was! Turns out it was a birds nest in the gutter. A lovely builder friend came to work it out (twice!) - and we had no idea who to call. Was it a window thing, a roof thing?!
Renting a house in New Orleans from a very passive woman. She decides to put a new roof on (didn’t need it very much) and hires neighbors of her mom who are not roofers. They demand a key and she allows them to have one! We were making jewelry in the xtra room and I’d come in and find the “roofer” chatting with my partner while he worked. I’d scream at him and kick him out. Over and over. The more I screamed the less work he did. This went on for weeks. Summer in NOLA is BIG thunderstorm time.
One day I noticed there was no noise coming from the roof. I went up to the attic and saw THE WHOLE ROOF WAS GONE; they were gone and - what was building in the sky?? HUGE thunderclouds. I called the landlord and screamed at her (pointless I know) and then the storm broke. Buckets of water (of course) came pouring into our house. We had moved as many of the electronics (3 Apple computers, printers, copy machine, fax machine, etc etc, the jewelry, the clothes and the ART to the center of the rooms as possible but to no avail.
I was so upset I had a breakdown - crying and (more) screaming. When she got them back the next day they wouldn’t give the key back!!
I told her if she didn’t hire real roofers that day I would sue her for everything she had (yeah I was mean but she had ruined everything we had).
The new roofers completed the job in ONE DAY! Landlord had the whole inside repainted and she paid for all the equipment and art and furniture that was destroyed - which came to thousands of dollars.
Because she (1) couldn’t say no to idiots and (2) she wanted to get a deal.
I've never seen fireflies, we don't have any in my corner of the world. I'd love to!
We have lived in our apartment for nearly two years and are still renovating (we're doing everything ourselves). For about a year I peed in a bucket in the kitchen for more reasons than I can list here, including while I was pregnant. Anyways, I absolutely loved your comic, as always!❤️
My son has a window air conditioning unit in his room. When it is super humid out, it pulls humidity out of the air and sounds like running water. I panicked until I realized what it was.
Oh man, I had a ceiling leak last year--the kind where a whole chunk of ceiling turns into to world's worst water balloon, waiting to pop and drench you with water.
It trickled from my upstairs walls to my kitchen ceiling, leaving destroyed plaster in its wake.
Insurance covered a new roof (old one was installed wrong??) and water mitigation (including a giant industrial dehumidifier--it dried ME out so much I started getting bloody noses) and repair. HOWEVER, they found lead paint, so instead of a quick & easy repair job, it required mitigation with walled off plastic partitions and took way longer.
Hopefully this makes you feel better?! It can happen to anyone, and sometimes there's dangerous paint. 0/10 would not recommend.
Our roof leaked so badly, one night during an average rainfall, we had water pouring down from the ceiling in every single room in the house. I thought it couldn't get worse until I saw water seeping in from the living room floorboards. The landlord hired a contractor who was on crack, and they dithered around until we lawyered up. Then, suddenly, a crew showed up, found the leaks, repaired them in three days, and all has been well ever since (knocking on miraculously mould-free wood). I hope the same for you.
My spouse and I rented a house with friends in the first couple years we were married. In early November, I went into the spare bedroom and noticed a sizeable water spot. I took pictures and sent them to the landlord. Next day, the spot had grown. We moved everything out of the room and laid down a tarp. Another call and email with pictures to the landlord. It started dripping the next day. Add buckets, more pictures, another call. Landlord finally says "I'll send someone out." Several more days, increasing bucket changes, calls to ask "when exactly is this person coming out?" Two days before Thanksgiving, there's a huge storm and we hear a big groan and crash - open the door to see a 4 foot section of ceiling has collapsed. Landlord finally sent someone out the Saturday after Thanksgiving - a crew came back the following Monday to tarp the roof, but then they disappeared and it was March before we had a new roof. Somehow, we still stayed in the house for another year.
We sadly have no fireflies in this part of the UK, I can only dream.
I've always lived with fireflies, and I guess I assumed they were everywhere. I DEFEINITELY assumed they were everywhere in the midwest. But I guess I was wrong. One of my friends grew up kind of in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota, (okay, that's not helpful, the whole state is in the middle of nowhere). In her part of Middle of Nowhere, it's dry, no rivers or bodies of water. And she had never seen a lightning bug until she came here, to the southeast corner, by the river. Apparently, they like water. (But Oregon is so wet! Why are they not there!?)
Maybe I need to do some research into fireflies. But I'll definitely think about how magical they are the next time I see one.
(Side note: the upstairs bathroom at the office has a giant leak in the ceiling. Like, the ceiling is coming down. And roofers here are booked out for literal years. We have put a bucket under it and hope for the best. Please don't tell Boaz's mom.)
I adore your storytelling and segues like fireflies only shining their lights when flying up to water dripping down. 💕 I used to work in a cubicle space below the men’s county jail and sometimes the residents would purposely clog their toilets and it would cause leaking onto my desk, filing cabinet, etc. That was yucky. It was more than a strategically placed pickle jar could handle. I didn’t need to protest in the same manner to change desks, luckily. 😅
This is such a lovely post. I thought fireflies/ lightning bugs were everywhere; now I'll be more grateful for them. We have a leaky roof & rain coming in through the ceiling. And a basement that flooded (again) this summer.
I have a gutter issue, shouldn’t be a problem in summer but in the uk summer was all of 5 minutes so I need to get it sorted
It rained inside my house - below and above the window frame and it took us months to figure out what it was! Turns out it was a birds nest in the gutter. A lovely builder friend came to work it out (twice!) - and we had no idea who to call. Was it a window thing, a roof thing?!
Renting a house in New Orleans from a very passive woman. She decides to put a new roof on (didn’t need it very much) and hires neighbors of her mom who are not roofers. They demand a key and she allows them to have one! We were making jewelry in the xtra room and I’d come in and find the “roofer” chatting with my partner while he worked. I’d scream at him and kick him out. Over and over. The more I screamed the less work he did. This went on for weeks. Summer in NOLA is BIG thunderstorm time.
One day I noticed there was no noise coming from the roof. I went up to the attic and saw THE WHOLE ROOF WAS GONE; they were gone and - what was building in the sky?? HUGE thunderclouds. I called the landlord and screamed at her (pointless I know) and then the storm broke. Buckets of water (of course) came pouring into our house. We had moved as many of the electronics (3 Apple computers, printers, copy machine, fax machine, etc etc, the jewelry, the clothes and the ART to the center of the rooms as possible but to no avail.
I was so upset I had a breakdown - crying and (more) screaming. When she got them back the next day they wouldn’t give the key back!!
I told her if she didn’t hire real roofers that day I would sue her for everything she had (yeah I was mean but she had ruined everything we had).
The new roofers completed the job in ONE DAY! Landlord had the whole inside repainted and she paid for all the equipment and art and furniture that was destroyed - which came to thousands of dollars.
Because she (1) couldn’t say no to idiots and (2) she wanted to get a deal.
I've never seen fireflies, we don't have any in my corner of the world. I'd love to!
We have lived in our apartment for nearly two years and are still renovating (we're doing everything ourselves). For about a year I peed in a bucket in the kitchen for more reasons than I can list here, including while I was pregnant. Anyways, I absolutely loved your comic, as always!❤️
My son has a window air conditioning unit in his room. When it is super humid out, it pulls humidity out of the air and sounds like running water. I panicked until I realized what it was.