Sigh

My apartment is generally very clean. It's a product of my raising. It gets cluttered occaisionally --usually toward the end of my six day stretch at work --but it's clean almost always. I've mentioned the last two weeks have been uber stressful. School is over now though, two large stretches of work are over, and one cross-country trip is complete. I haven't done a lot of cleaning recently except for my obligatory pre-vaca rundown. So a few mornings ago when I got home for work, I figured I must have missed something that was causing a rotten smell in my apartment. So, in between finishing school and working 40 hours I deep cleaned my apartment again. Every dish was cleaned, carpets were shampoo-ed, fridge was scrubbed, garbages emptied, every piece of laundry was washed and put away, bathroom and kitchen drains were cleaned and disinfected, shower was cleaned, floors were mopped, toilet was scrubbed with a fresh bleach block in the tank. The smell persisted. This morning it smelled like rotten potatoes. Have you ever smelled rotten potatoes? It's not pleasant. I had NO idea where it was coming from. I had noticed that the smell was worse around the bathroom, which is why I cleaned all the drains, thinking it was coming from there. But when I put my face in the sink/tub and sniffed, there were no abnormal smells. I was out of ideas. Until I noticed the smell was worse as I was walking out of the bathroom. Past my utility closet. Where the water heater is. So I opened the closet, and sure enough the entire wall behind the water heater was waterlogged. I'm talking about  damp, squishy, bubbled with water from the apartment upstairs. The carpet behind the water heater was damp as well. Don't ask how I got back there to check. Fantastic.  It's times like these that I wish everything was open at 0330. Like maintenance. I filled out a maintenance request, but I'd really like to go to bed, and I'd like to do so without a mildew-smelling apartment. Sigh. It might be a long couple days...