Not cool

The hot water heater for my condo unit lives in my bedroom closet. I had it replaced last year. Yesterday afternoon when I walked into my bedroom I thought I smelled some "ozone," but it went away quickly so I dismissed it. Around dawn this morning I woke up to a loud POP, but half asleep, dismissed it as Momo doing something mischievous in the outside room. After another quick POP I finally got up to see what's going on, but couldn't find anything and thought I was going crazy, but a few minutes later I heard it again and saw a flash behind my closet door. I threw the doors open knew it had to be the hot water heater. I frantically pulled all the bedding and blankets away from the shelves around it. Then it POPped again and I saw the actual sparks shoot out and small flames rise up from the top of it. Momo and I jumped about 10 feet and I ran out to the circuit breaker and shut off everything because I couldn't tell which was just the water heater. Still completely stunned, I inspected the top of the heater and saw that the electric component on the top of it had obviously developed a short since there was a hole burned through its metal lid and the copper grounding wire arching off of it was also burned. I eventually called my building manager and he came up to check it out. He'd never heard of anything like this and was stunned also and glad I was ok.

Who thinks of a hot water heater being the source of a bad wiring disaster? Granted it's a large appliance that has to heat up mass amounts of cold water so there must be some electronic component to it with as much a chance to fail as any, but hell it's in everyone's closet with all their flammable clothing too so it must be all good, right?

Fuck me. All those sparks and short flames were just inches away from all my down bedding and blankets and sweaters and clothing. That entire closet would have gone up in flames in seconds and engulfed the entire wall with the door out of my bedroom. The only other way out is the window, which is 4 floors up. Based on how frantic I was just seeing those sparks and small flames, I cannot fathom what I would have been like had there been a real disaster. There would be no time to think or be rational.

I'm getting one of my old climbing ropes and tethering it to my armour. I also don't have a smoke detector in my bedroom. I'm going to get 12 new smoke detectors and even afix one to Momo's head. I don't care if the other kitties make fun of him.

But I did make the most of a beautiful sunny day and went out for a great ride with Heather. If my place wanted to burn down while I was out, that was fine with me.