about a month ago, our washing machine went kaput — and decided to flood the unit below ours.

oops.

the guy who lives there came up and told us, and was pretty chill about the whole thing.

“oh, the last time this happened …”

huh?

turns out the previous owners of our unit flooded his apartment … as did the owners before them. actually, one of them did it twice, apparently.

and, when we i pulled the washing machine out from the closet to see what the heck was going on, there was a half inch gap between the wall and the floor — so any time water splashed out of our machine, it went right through to the ceiling of his unit.

so, i spent last weekend patching the open space — wood, plaster, caulk — and spent this weekend painting everything up nice and spiffy.

and, while the lady sparkler was buying us new laundry equipment to complete the mini-renovation, baby sparklet was discovering the joy of automatic doors (see video, above).

priceless.