"Ceiling Watch 2008" comes to a close

It's finally done. I received the glorious news when I walked in the door from work this evening. It's complete, no more leaking! Yeah!! I'm so happy. My allergies were becoming quite unbearable for a little bit before they got rid of the rotting drywall.

When they had someone into inspect the ceiling they discovered that not only did someone seal up a hole in the pipe with electrical tape, but when the house was built the lines were not installed at the correct angle apparently thus preventing the normal flow of water out of the pipe.

So now we just have to wait for everything to dry out completely after they had to cut open everything today to fix the pipe, and then have the ugly, ugly hole covered. Apparently they (the owners) just want to slap some painted plywood up to save us having to "deal with the mess of drywall". The real reason is that they just don't want to have to pay someone to install drywall. They sure didn't care that mold was growing over our table for months and months.

I hate the idea of having to live with a huge eyesore above our dining room table, but at the same time am happy that this mold problem is just about over. Since they took out the rotting drywall and we sprayed the wood my allergies and asthma has been a lot better already. I think I may spray everything again on the weekend though. I have a botanical spray that kills 99% of mold and mildew spores.

So without further ado here are the pictures of the during and the (hideous) after.

During:

This is what everything looked like the night that the owners daughter finally came over to get rid of the mold. The pink is a towel wrapped around the pipe so they would be able to gauge if water was actually still leaking. The leak was actually at the top of the pipe, so the water would drip around the pipe and pool between the wood and the drywall. That's why the black on the wood is so scary looking. It's very wet. The black thing hanging on the left is actually the electrical tape that some idiot had used to fix the problem in the first place.

After:

And now here is the hole sans leak. The plumber installed some wood to elevate the pipe and help the natural flow of water. Hopefully there won't be anymore leakage as long as we're renting. The black on the wood is much less scary looking now. It as been sprayed with bleach and a botanical spray to help kill the mold spores.
They don't want to cut out the wood, but I'm a little leary of them sanding the wood and potentially releasing spores into the air. Who knows what will happen now. Hopefully they will fix this hole quicker than the four months it took to fix the leak!