Another water leak!

Last Thursday morning, I happened to go down to the basement to check on the snakes and discovered that water was again leaking from where the main line to the house comes in. Although I had left the bucket there from the previous leak (nearly 2 months ago), it had filled up and overflowed, and there was already enough water on the floor to get several boxes wet. One stack had tipped over, putting its top box right under the leak! I still haven't had the courage to look into the boxes (some of them contain family pictures and other memorabilia!) and see what damage may have been done, but I think it's somewhat less than last time for 2 reasons: I found this one sooner, and there were simply less boxes nearby since I had moved most of them out last time.

I tried to find the plumber's number but discovered that I didn't have it. Thursday was a busy teaching day for me, so I wasn't even able to make any progress on the problem until late afternoon. I called our builder, Zion, to get the plumber's number and then called the plumber. He doesn't speak English, so I did my best to communicate in Hebrew. He said that he couldn't come because he was fasting (I assume that this means he's a Muslim, since we're now in the Islamic month of Ramadan when Muslims don't eat between sunrise and sunset). So I asked him if he could tell me of anyone else. The only suggestion he had was to call Zion, which I did. Zion said that he would call the plumber, but nothing came of that, so I called Zion back again, and he came over himself. We figured out how to turn off the water to the house, and we investigated enough to convince both of us that there was some kind of leak in the main line this time. Anyway, since them I've mostly been leaving the water entirely off, except for short periods so that we can occasionally flush toilets or do other things that require water.

According to Zion, the plumber will come on Sunday, but, frankly, I'll believe it when I see it.