Fun with Water Leaks

A few days ago, Laura was vaccuuming and noticed that the carpet behind our shower was soaked. I know that the "solution" starts with pulling up the carpet, cutting away the pad, and putting a fan over it to dry it out. It wasn't a big patch of wetness. I'm guessing 2 feet by 3 feet. We did most of that, but tried to also save the carpet bad, because we're cheapskates. After all, it's not like mold can thrive inside something that's basically plastic. Yesterday, D noticed that water's dripping out of the ceiling. We climbed into the attic and looked around. It seemed like an obvious thing where the roof is leaking from all the recent rain. It probably ties in with damage from the ice storm. And our carpet behind the shower is soaked again. Laura started calling repair companies. It's tough to find anyone to come out to your house on the Sunday morning of a 3 day weekend. I went to brunch. It's great to have a partner who takes care of everything. I should probably feel guilty about how much she does without me. Maybe someday I'll grow up and help her too. In the meantime, she has eye candy. She got a disaster mitigation specialist to show up about the time I got back. I'm guessing that he was still asleep and half drunk when she called. But he showed up. First, he established that the problem isn't our roof. It's yet another pinhole leak from the water heater in our attic. Yes. For some God-awful reason, we have a water heater in our attic. It has leaked twice now. The first time, the plumber told us that the solution is a relief valve because it's under too much pressure. This time, the guy told us we just need to pay to have it moved to ground level where it belongs. He did replace the ruptured line. I'm pretty sure it's the same one that broke last time. He's also sure that there's a completely unrelated hole in our shower line, which is the source of that second leak that only seems to happen when we bathe. And then he set up fans and dehumidifiers. They don't bother me. The constant low drone is a welcome distraction from my tinnitus. It's a fairly pleasant reminder of my days working at Service Master. Mal can't cope. He has enough bathroom issues as a baseline. This adds stress that he can't handle. So Laura took him to her parents'. Laura said that Aish ran out when the guy set up the fans in our bedroom. Extra fans are also blowing everywhere else she normally hides. So she ran right back in and hid under the bed. We've moved their food and water into that bathroom as prep for getting a dog (we want them to have somewhere it can't get). Laura moved those back into the dining room, where we used to feed them. We left the bedroom door open for a long time, so Aish could get out if/when she got hungry or needed to use the litter box. I waited out most of the day, but my office started roasting. So I finally chased her out from under the bed so I could fully shut up that bedroom. She's pretty miserable about the entire situation. She was snuggled up next to me when I woke this morning. She immediately rushed to hide under Mal's bookshelf, which is about 2 inches off the floor. I'm really impressed that she compresses that much. She's very food-motivated, but it took a lot of effort to coax her out to eat this morning. She's up in my lap now. That's a major reason this post is as long as it is: Now that she's comfortable, I don't want to disturb her. But I have things to do.