[BANG!] [splosh]

One way to meet the neighbours I suppose: "Hi, um, I live downstairs and I think part of your bathroom just fell through my bathroom ceiling"

Last night I was minding my own business, when an almighty BANG! came from the direction of my shower. I opened the door to find water coming through the ceiling, above which is a header tank. Uh oh. Opened the access door to the header tank and was relieved to find no water falling from under it, but somewhat perturbed by the water falling from the ceiling and the big hole that had appeared there.

The friendly bewildered australian women who live above me in flat 6 were in the process of fathoming how their blocked shower had suddenly unblocked itself when I knocked on the door... Apparently something similar happened to them last year: flat 8's shower caused their shower's ceiling to collapse. Given I've been complaining to the letting agent since I moved in that my shower tray is in danger of causing a leak through into flat 2 (below me) I feel somewhat vindicated by this. Clearly a kind of tenement plinko is underway.

We swapped letting agency details and agreed to each call in maintenance in the morning. ClickLet's plumber sounds to be with them already. Dove Davies had already been informed of the leak when I rang them at 9:15 which was pretty impressive I thought... They hadn't heard about the hole in the ceiling though, and were as unsettled as I am by the news that my bathroom's cold tap is now spouting gunk and occasionally blocking... seems likely that it feeds off the header tank*, so I've shut off the hot water too (since presumably similar gunk will be going into the immersion tank if I use it) leaving me with one working tap - the cold in the kitchen.

The lovely thing about renting is that all of this is someone else's problem to sort out.

* which is also kinda icky. Though at least now I know.