r/maintenance

Hello! Sorry if this isn’t the right place. Mods you can delete this. Sorry for my tone. We need help right now. The hot water handle in the master bathroom’s shower came off and from that hole boiling hot water has been spraying at high pressure for over 40 minutes. While a roomate’s been DIY’ing maintenance (EVERYONE is unresponsive during the holiday, the only one answering is an AI “community assistant”) I’ve been trying to find where a valve might be to shut all the water off— but I have NO IDEA where I’d look and my browser keeps giving me AI-generated bullshit, but from what I gather either it’s somewhere in a utility closet or it’s outdoors and only apartment staff have access. Does anybody know where I should look? I’m going to go back to my browser but I’ll check in as often as I can. So sorry mods. Thank you everyone!

UPDATE 1:40AM: We called the fire department because I was honestly too scared to mess with the water heater myself. Three men came out and checked the thing and found no shut-off, is what they said. So they’re outside currently checking for a main line they can access. Otherwise they can’t help us. Fun! But thank you all so much, again, for the enormity and swiftness of your response, we were at a complete loss for what to do in this situation! This is far from the first major maintenance issue we’ve had in this apartment, so our next step will probably be legal action. Don’t think we have a choice anymore.

UPDATE 10:03 AM: We finally got ahold of someone! The assistant property manager, who is out on vacation, picked up a call and we have a third party coming in an estimated 10-20 minutes! And sorry for not responding for some hours, I couldn’t keep myself awake to check (and re-check) everything and record everything very far past 5AM. I’m aware of people criticizing my response and my ignorance of the plumbing in this apartment, and criticism is fair, but I still think I’ve done what I can do. I promise there isn’t a magical off-switch I’ve been hiding from you folks, or one supposed off-switch I haven’t touched. I would have loved for that to be the case. Anyway, I should be able to close this issue soon and stop troubling you and the maintenace subreddits. Thank you all for your support.

UPDATE 10:47: THE WATER IS OFF! All of it, for now. The “off-switch” was in a crawlspace underneath our HVAC in that (a different, obviously) closet, a pipe whose valve didn’t even have a handle on it. The guy from the third party had to use a wrench to turn it. THANK YOU AGAIN everyone, every suggestion, every joke, even some of the condescension I’ve received; I am ENDLESSLY grateful that this has gotten the response it has, when nobody but literally 911 listened to our calls for help, and even they couldn’t solve the issue.

I don’t know what the etiquette is for resolved issues on this subreddit, I just got here yesterday for this catastrophe. But thank you folks, you’re wonderful. I’m going to bask in the relative quiet of the apartment now. ♥️

Why did you wait a week until we were in the middle of heatwave and knowing damn well that we are gone for the holiday weekend until Monday, to make a service request? And no, you cannot have a special hypoallergenic filter. Even if you provide it yourself, but I see you're not even going to make an effort for that either

​

Gotta love the "urgent" feature on our new tels system.

Stay sane and cool out there fellas!

One month in of renting a newly built property and all my "double glaze" windows show up with pools of water everyday. Every morning I'm mopping up water, wiping the window frames down and opening the windows. Real estate said it's normal for this to happen in winter and to just do what I've been doing. It's been a month and it's the same every day, even growing mould now too which isn't ideal for anyone but more so for my 6 month old twins!!!!

I've emailed real estate again to see if someone can come and inspect and tell me if the windows are insulated properly.

Winter in Australia, heat pump in lounge on 19°c auto, exhaust fans used in kitchen and bathroom, moisture absorbers on every window.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Now it's a roach detector

We had a paving company punch a small hole in our garage door trim. The owner said he can get it fixed for about $50 but he's offering me $100 to settle the issue. Is that enough for me to fix this? TIA

Title says it all I was wondering if anybody else has any unique or antique elevators or those old hand-powered dumbwaiters at the workplace.

Tenant: hey should I fix the holes from hanging pictures?

Me: nah man not if it’s not excessive. It’s easier if I just do it myself

Two days later ……

Both condensers are at the same house.

This heat has made hydration a chore. Especially with no golf carts. This thing has come in clutch this week. It makes running back to the shop for parts worth it.

Question 1: How do I separate the elbow on this door closer? The joints at the elbow and where it connects to the door jamb are smooth with no screws or bolts, and the end that connects to the door has a bolt connecting it to the valve, but the arm will not lift off when I remove it. Question 2: What is this piece on the jamb end in the third picture? I've been Googling for longer than I want to admit and I can't find a single mention or picture of this piece on any kind of door closer. I even tried a Google lens search to no avail.

Hi everyone,
So I am a renter of a commercial property. Myself and a few others rent a large space in an old factory building. In order to cool down the space during the summer, we were encouraged during the move in discussions to purchase 3 ac units - so we did. The maintence person for the property is supposed to install them for us. We have had one installed for about a year, and we have been asking for months for them to come install a second one.

The leasing agent says now, that we have a transformer which can only run 30 vol, and since our ac units are respectively take up 10-11v, roughly 14000 each BTU, we can’t install a second one because the transformer couldn’t handle it. Also she says that the led lights overhead take up about 8 volts?? We are not electricians so we have no clue if this is valid or not. I looked into it and heard about the 20/80 rule, meaning we can’t use the transformer up to its limit. I also looked into it and worst it seems would be that the breaker would trip? She also said we need an upgrade to our transformer and wants us to go halves with them on the cost??? This sounds like bs to me. Attached is a pic of the transformer so you can see. Is this electrical problem just bullshit? Can I use two acs with the lights off? Thank you so much for those who answer that has been a real stresser for us.