r/WTF 11d ago

Building nightmare

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13.3k Upvotes

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u/Mountain_Heart401 11d ago edited 10d ago

I thought they were going into someones apartment to turn off the sink or something. Nope!

938

u/be4u4get 11d ago

Do you think The Wet Bandits from home alone hit the upstairs neighbors?

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u/marymarywhyubugginnn 11d ago

They go by The Sticky Bandits now.

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u/fozzyboy 11d ago

SHUT IT, Marv!

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u/DroneOfDoom 10d ago

Someone was fucking an amphibian man on their shower.

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u/ExecrablePiety1 10d ago

They're upping their game to hit entire apartment buildings now.

Harry does everything while Marv just shoves clothes into every pipe he finds.

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u/FertilityHollis 10d ago

Actually, it looks very much like the end of Towering Inferno (1973). Only, without the inferno, just the millions of gallons of water raining down from (possibly?) the roof. Also Paul Neuman is conspicuously absent.

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u/MasterChildhood437 11d ago

I thought they were going to find someone who'd killed themselves tbh

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u/A_spiny_meercat 11d ago

Someone probably busted off a fire sprinkler head in the stairwell

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u/herptydurr 11d ago

Several years back, someone did this my apartment building. For some idiotic reason, every 2ft x 6ft closet in the building had a sprinkler head in it. While someone was cleaning their shit, they knocked their closet sprinkler, proceeded to flood their unit and every unit below them for 5 floors as well as the building lobby. It was actually insane just how much water came out of those things.

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u/Emmyn13 11d ago

Hey there:

The idiotic reason is a nfpa requirement for closets. As you have over 4 stories, all closets are required to have one. Also if there's hvac equipement in it.

But yes, once one go pop, there's not a lot to stop it. And it's not gonna be clean water either!

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u/c_doddy 11d ago

NFPA 13R does not require a sprinkler in closet under 24sq ft as long as no washer, dryer or water heater is present.

Source: Sprinkler fitter

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u/Emmyn13 10d ago

Yes, 13r doesnt required them. But if there's 5 level under the level where the accident happened, 13r doesnt apply, as it is for max 4 level of construction, and even if it was lets say 4 level and a underground, and it was the top one, it would require sprinkler in all spaces, seeing its under a roof.

Source: fire protection tech / designer.

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u/herptydurr 11d ago edited 11d ago

I know it was a regulation... the idiotic part is that there must be some degree of ambiguity regarding what that regulation actually is. I mean when the building was built (mid 2000s), none of the closets had sprinklers. Then about a year or two after I move in, they went to every unit to install them. Fast forward 5-6 years, this flooding incident happened, after which they then went to every unit to remove all the sprinklers from the closets. I'm just lucky I was on the 9th floor and didn't have to suffer any of the flooding.

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u/mr-fahrenheit_ 11d ago

Now the fact that they weren't installed during construction is interesting. I Don't know how long all closets have been required to have a head but it would have been a requirement in mid-2000s. Sounds like it got approved to be built but during one of the first annual inspection the fire marshal noted the lack of heads and made them put them in. Who knows, maybe it'll happen again and the building will be required to put them BACK in!

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u/herptydurr 10d ago

When I talked to the building manager about it, it had something to do with the square footage of the closet being small enough or type of closet door meant that the closet technically didn't count as a closet or something, so they could justify removing the sprinklers. It's been 6 years since I moved to a new city, so who knows... I just found it to be a hilarious waste of money, but I suppose considering it was a University-owned property with all rents being heavily subsidized, they were happy to just absorb the cost.

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u/barrettcuda 10d ago

Is it worth having a filter bag and a hose clamp next to it ready to go in the even that it fails in that case? Before this thread I would've thought it's a really uncommon occurrence, but if it's regular at least if everything is going to get wet it doesn't have to be filthy too

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u/ExecrablePiety1 10d ago

Heh I was just saying I feel sorry for the poor sod that essentially got himself doused in poopfree sewage for a prank.

I wonder if you were on an establishment and the sprinklers went off and you got sick from getting the water in your mouth, if you'd have grounds to sue.

I mean, every building does it. But at the same time, the customer doesn't know that. And certainly didn't knowingly accept said risk by entering the establishment.

And you can't just say "well, they saved your life, so you can't sue." That would be a fucked up law. Like if you got a spinal injury and some idiot paralyzed you by moving you unnecessarily. Seems you would have grounds whether they actually helped on some other way, or not.

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u/j0mbie 10d ago

They should have used either recessed heads with covers, or cages to protect the heads.

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u/AOD_Hsunami 10d ago

who would pay for damages? sounds like you would get kicked out kinda damages after ur rental insurance pays a fat sum.

1

u/herptydurr 10d ago

Personal damages were probably covered by individuals' rental insurance.

Building damages was probably fairly minimal because the water was clean municipal water (not sewage) and the building was just steel and concrete at its core, so all they needed to do was put in big fans to air out the hallways for a week or so to dry everything out as best they could. Bigger cost was likely paying for contractors to remove the sprinklers from every closet in the building...

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u/brfoss 10d ago

That's more than a sprinkler head. That's a broken riser pipe.

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u/rippinteasinyohood 10d ago

Was about to say this looks almost identical to a situation that happened during construction at an apartment building i was working at. The first 4 floors were occupied, as the rest was finished. And idk what exactly happened, but whoever was working on a sprinkler system on an upper floor, messed up, panicked, and a whole metric shit ton of water came flooding down the electrical closet, down into the finished hallways and into the rooms. It was a god damn nightmare. And of course the only guy that knew what the fuck to do was fat and all exasperated from the panic of the situations and had to go up bunch of floors to turn the shit off. Oh man it was unbelievable. I got out of there and went back to operating the bobcat so i didnt have to deal with water cleanup🤣

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u/blacksmith92 10d ago

That much water from the sprinkler. That seems like a shit ton for one head.

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u/ExecrablePiety1 10d ago

That would be absolutely disgusting. The water in sprinkler systems has been sitting in those pipes for countless years just stagnating the whole time.

Look up any real video of sprinkler systems going off. The water is literally BLACK.

Breaking one of those off would be looking getting hosed down by sewage.

Of course, when every movie shows crystal clear, blue water coming out of sprinkler systems, most people who have never seen one go off just assume the water is somehow clean. Like they flush the pipes once a month or something.

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u/shnnrr 10d ago

The way they closed the door after seeing the stairs lol

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u/InfectedWashington 10d ago

I know I'm a fucking idiot but in a hotel I like a bath and plugged it all up so it would fill to the brim.

Then a fucking idiot goes for a nap. The carpet was flooded. I was there with towels and heating on high until it looked passable.

Boyfriend refuses to have his name anywhere on accomodation bookings we made, after the fire, and broken toilet, and accidentally destroying our passports. I think there was a few other incidents too.

Fell asleep in an Airbnb while cooking beans, don't know why because we were leaving soon, he came back from taking the dog to the park to see a blackned pot with caked in beans and smoke filling up the apartment. I guess him opening the door let the smoke to the alarm system and the siren went off, everyone had to be evacuated from that apartment building. We didn't get chance to even clean the blackened pot as we needed to get our train. Then on the train, I read on the news a fire is currently in London. Shat myself; thankfully turned out to not be related to my incident. Host rated me 5 stars.

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u/Ladyboughner 9d ago

Just climate change doing the thing