Kayla in Korea: The Great Flood

Ok that might be a bit of an exaggeration! Well, last week was quite the unpleasant week... it's monsoon season in Korea which really meant nothing to me before last week since the the supposed "rainy season" last year consisted of a few thunderstorms - not much more than we get in the summer months back home in NJ. But this season has been much more characteristically rainy and over the past several days this rain has come in the form of several monsoons where it comes down in relentless sheets and there is no hope for you if you're out in it, even if you have an umbrella. My street turned into a river and I'm sure there must have been flooding since the first floor apartments in villas like mine are partially below ground. I'm lucky to be on the 2nd floor so I thought I was out of reach of the water damage but sadly I was mistaken. I came home from work last Tuesday night at 9:15 to find a 1/2 inch of water covering my living room floor and coffee table. I had no idea the water was on the floor so this was discovered when I walked into my pitch-black living room to turn on the light and slipped in the rainy water. I got up and turned the light switch on - there was a huge POP and the light went out. I moved to a lamp and when the light came on I quickly realized with horror what had happened to my living room. Looking up I discovered the reason for the behavior of my overhead light - there was a huge water damage spot on the ceiling all around the light fixture and the water was dripping from the opening they made when the light was installed! Not exactly electrical safety considering at this point the wires up there for the light were sitting in water... I quickly turned off the electricity to that light and proceeded to clean up the mess and place an old pot under the place where the ceiling was leaking.

The next morning I talked to my boss about it as she is my liaison with the landlord. There wasn't really anything they could do because the rain, at this point, had not stopped so there was no way to do any work on the roof or ceiling until it did.. Sadly when I got home that night the ceiling was leaking in two more places! Now it's a week later and the rain has stopped and the ceiling is no longer dripping but there are still 3 large brown wet spots on my ceiling. The aesthetics don't really bother me but I'm nervous about what will happen next time it rains, particularly if it does do while I'm away on vacation next week...

Anyway this is what it looked like last week, it wasn't pretty!