As I was leaving the kitchen on tuesday night, I feel something damp on the carpeting at the edge of the kitchen floor. Sure enough, the whole edge of the carpet was very wet. I thought Steve probably wiped some spill. But, I could place a paper towel and wick quite a bit of water. I called Steve and he told me that there was a water spill as he was trying to fix the plumbing and he had cleaned it up. As I was talking to him, I see a gleaming bead of water in one of the joints in the flooring. Again, placing a paper towel on the flooring, I could draw a couple of drops of water. I also place a paper towel under the dishwasher and pull quite a bit of water. I immediately tell Steve that he needs to come over in the morning and take a look.

Wednesday morning, Steve arrives to take a look. He removed some of the flooring and assures me that rest of the flooring is OK.

That evening when I arrived home, I see that Steve has only removed a strip of flooring under and near the stove. I’m not convinced he has done a complete job because I can still see joints in the flooring buckled. Where I had drawn water the previous day, flooring is still intact. I called up Steve at 8:30PM and he tells me that he had removed the flooring, examined the underside and everything was fine. I’m still not convinced. I just placed another paper towel under the dishwasher and pulled up some more water. This is a bigger problem that Steve is downplaying for some reason. He has only removed the flooring from the stove area, overlooking the area near the sink and dishwasher. I called up Ken to let him know and asking Steve to come over the next day and take a look. Soon thereafter Steve called me back to tell me that there was another leak – once again, he did not tell me this had happened – and that he probably forgot to wipe the area under the dishwasher. I explain to him that the flooring needs to be removed. He’ll arrive here tomorrow morning to take a look.

Meanwhile, I took some pictures of the floor and sent them over to Ken by eMail, for reference.