DAY 20

The water pipe runneth over.

This was the scene that greeted us when we got to the apt last night. We arrived at around 8pm and when we opened the door, we heard the sound of water running. My first thought was " Oh no, they forgot to turn off the tap properly and imagined the big black pail overflowing with water and a flooded kitchen. However, it wasn't the tap outside but the water pipe inside the kitchen bathroom that was running. The rate of water flow was pretty high. Not a drippy sort of situation. We didn't know what to make of it. We thought they might be doing this to test for waterproofing in the bathroom, but to my limited knowledge, I know that doing this test involves flooding the bathroom for some hours to check for leaks, not leaving the water running like that. Who leaves the water running like that and who's going to pay for the water bill? This couldn't have been a very practical test if it was indeed one. I shot a video of it and sent it to my contractor to ask about it, but we didn't do anything to stem the flow in case it was really some test they were doing. But since I couldn't reach him on my first try, MJ decided to stop the flow because it was alarming to see so much water being wasted like that. 
So he used some small pieces of tile to make a 'path' to reach the pipe and used the plug that was on the floor to plug it back in to stop the flow. 
He managed to do it but he had to be crouched in that position to hold the plug in place without letting go. In the meantime, my contractor called me back and told me that this was not right. The water shouldn't be running like that. So he asked me to turn off the water supply mains outside of the unit, but I assumed that one needs that special key tap to fix to the mains to turn it off because that is the case for mine and my mother's water supply mains. You can't just turn it off like that you need the key tap. He said he would rush down with a spanner to turn it off. But knowing that he would take at least 15 to 30 mins, I went around the house to see if there was a spanner lying around. I managed to find a small wrench and prayed that it would work. I went outside to the mains and was relieved when I saw two taps attached to it. I quickly turned both off and it worked. I didn't need any key tap or other tools after all.  Luckily there was a new copper pipe next to my water supply mains so I just assumed it was the correct one to turn off and not my neighbours'. 
The water must've been running for at least 2-3 hours. It's not just what that situation is going to cost us financially that bothered us, but the fact that so much water was wasted. We've always been taught to save water and this incident was the exact opposite.
We weren't angry or anything, cos we know that these accidents happen but I shudder to think what would've happened if we hadn't arrived when we did. We don't go to the house every day and if last night had been one of those days we didn't go, just imagine how much water would've been wasted and the size of our water bill! Anyway, thank God that a potential 'situation' was averted.

MJ bent over to stop the flow.

Close up of the offenders.

The water mains outside the unit. Luckily there were taps that I could just turn off. The new units don't have the tap to turn and one must use a key tap to prevent any would-be vandals from disrupting one's water supply.

I went to the flat this morning again to take some pix. The workers had finished applying the waterproofing on the bathroom floors and created the drainage channels that will be covered by the tiles.

A wider shot of the kitchen bathroom. They've also started tiling the walls.

Same situation with the master bedroom bathroom. Only this one didn't leak!

The bathroom floor tiles have also arrived. These are 300x600mm rough surface grey tiles that we got from Soon Bee Huat tiles. Made in China though.

Or should I say Chaina.

These 600x600mm grey tiles are for the kitchen floor, also from SBH, also made in China. The ones from Europe cost about 3-4 times that of the ones from China...I would've loved to have them but the ones with the surface we wanted were the China ones.

Hard finish plaster, ready to plaster the walls and false ceiling, I believe.

Still quite a sight.