A 68-year-old woman woke to water pouring through her hallway light, only for her upstairs neighbor to dismiss the damage as her problem. By the next morning, a maintenance worker had discovered something above her ceiling that changed everything.
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“Your ceiling, your problem, Marlene. Call your own insurance and stop bothering us.”
That’s what Ron said to me at 11 p.m., through his door, with water still coming through my hallway light.
He’s lived directly above me for 11 years.
I heard it before I saw it.
A tapping sound, like someone flicking a pen.
I came out of the bedroom, and the hallway light was dripping. Not around it.
Out of the middle of it.
Out of the bulb.
Into a puddle that had already reached the closet door.
I turned the breaker off with my phone flashlight in my mouth.
I’m 68.
It took me longer than it should have.
The ceiling above the hall closet had gone soft and yellow, about the size of a dinner plate, and the popcorn texture was letting go in pieces.
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My mother’s rug was under it.
Wool.
Eleanor kept it in her dining room for 31 years, and I have had it for nine.
I rolled it as quickly as I could and dragged it into the bathtub.
Then I went upstairs.
Ron opened the door about six inches.
Glasses pushed up on his head, TV going behind him, and I could hear their washing machine still running.
I said, “Ron, your washer is coming through my ceiling.”
“Yeah, we know, Marlene. It’s fine now.”
I said it wasn’t fine.
I said my ceiling was coming down.
That’s when he said it.
“Your ceiling, your problem, Marlene. Call your own insurance and stop bothering us.”
Diane said something behind him that I didn’t catch.
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