Homecoming Surprise

So today we flew back home after a wonderful week with my family, which I will soon share more about in my personal blog. But for now, I would like to relate what happened when we arrived home...

There was a strong stench when we opened the door and I was afraid I left something out that spoiled. Then I walked in further to find the carpet quite squishy... not a good sign! Now I must rewind and give some background information. About a month or so ago I noticed one of our sprinklers (you know the indoor ones that go off when there's a fire) dripping a little bit. I called our landlords and they called the HOA, but the sprinklers are so old no one knew what to do. I put a towel down to catch the little bit of water but it wasn't bad. It dripped on and off for a weekend, then there was no sign of any more water. We were told just to call if it happened again, but there were no more problems with it. Before we left on our trip I checked all the sprinklers and they were all good. Okay, so fast forward to this morning. After I noticed the carpet was particularly squishy, I saw the steady stream of water draining from the sprinkler in the living room. The wall was damaged and there was a water filled pocket that looked quite interesting. After further investigation I discovered that the entire living room carpet was soaked. Not a good thing to come home to! We were gone a week, but have no idea when the waterfall started. But before you think this is a post solely for complaining or venting, we do feel blessed that it didn't damage many of our belongings, which would not have been the case if this happened with any other sprinkler in the house. Also, we are grateful that our landlord and HOA are very fast acting and helpful. We called minutes after getting home, and they came pretty quickly to pull up the drenched carpet padding and dry the carpet. I'm not gonna lie, this was a pretty big inconvenience because it involved moving all of our furniture out of our living room and we have to have a couple loud fans blowing constantly until Monday. So our living room will be bare for several days and a little on the loud side, but I have to say it's nice to get things fixed in a timely manner. A little while after the carpet guy (I took a nap around this time so I don't actually know the time frame), another guy came and turned off the water valve to the sprinklers (I wish this had been done the first time we had problems, but because they are so old no one, not even the HOA, knew about this valve). Long story short: I am grateful for no longer having a waterfall in the living room.