Gentleman in the Water

Yesterday, I woke to the sound of water flowing. The noise came from my neighbor's apartment and the carpet at the end of my hall next to his abode was soaked. I had experienced this before in Seattle, when the neighbor's water heater overflowed and flooded my place. The puddle looked similar, but smaller.

I ran over and banged on my neighbor's door. He answered and his responses were ludicrous. I told him about the sound of water flowing, and he said that the Avon rivers flowed and we lived in a marsh. I asked if one of his faucets was broken and he joked, "Faucet? Faucet? Force it. No, I didn't force my washing machine." I was annoyed but kept it to myself. And then he said, "Oh, my car, it's gone." We stood on his porch, I looked, and it wasn't there. I asked if he wanted to call the police, but he declined. Because of other conversations from the weekend, I thought that he was on a bender. I thought that he had left his car at a friend's house. I left not wanting to provoke him. The water noise had stopped when I returned to my place.


After my shower, he stopped by. I pointed out the water and he said that his bathroom, kitchen, and washing machine were on the far side of the apartment away from my hallway. I agreed. At this point, I thought it was a freak incident and I would check on the situation in the evening after school.


Curiosity got the better of me, and I left school at 4. When I returned home, I heard the water running again and the pool had drastically increased in size. I called the landlord because I thought a pipe had burst somewhere. Soaked carpets must be dried immediately or else they're destroyed. My landlord stopped by in hour and went to visit the neighbor. The neighbor wasn't there and my landlord let himself in. The neighbor had trashed his apartment, blocked the drains in the sinks, and left the water running. That caused the pool. His apartment looked like the hotel scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My landlord called the police, who then notified the neighbor's brother, who later stopped by. The brother said that the neighbor is mentally ill, but the condition can be treated with medication. He must have stopped taking his medication over the weekend. He was arrested earlier in the day and was at a hospital now.

I cross my fingers and hope that's the last of it. I feel mildly guilty that I recognized that something was up and I didn't do something sooner, but my neighbor needed help that was far beyond what I could offer. The damage to his apartment, apart from the cosmetic, appears to minimal. I hope that the hospital is able to help and he didn't damage himself. It sucks that he'll have to move when he's in such a state, but he needs to live with people who care about him rather than living by himself. The photos are of the pile of carpet we removed from my apartment and the bare floor where the carpet was.