Upside-down Mushrooms

I'm sure you all remember our leaky ceiling troubles? (Click on the link and scroll down to see those older posts.) Well, those leaks are worse now than they were before. The landlord's workmen have prepared the roof for the addition of a top coat of concrete, but the preparations involved chipping out concrete anywhere there was a crack or hole. So, of course, the cracks and holes now leak much worse than previously. The preparation work was completed about two weeks ago, but the workmen haven't come back to put on that new layer. When it rains (and for about 20 hours afterwards) water pours from the light fixture in the living room, and from four of our wall light switches. Plus, there are lots of non-electrical leaks, too.

The kitchen ceiling is the location of an especially active leak. It has been raining some almost every day for the past couple of weeks, usually at night. We had an average rain last night, and this afternoon the leak in the kitchen really started to make a large puddle. I don't know why some of our leaks have a delay, so that they begin to drip many hours after the actual rain.

Just a few minutes ago, David came running into my room, to tell me that flowers were growing on the kitchen ceiling. Of course, I was curious about this. Wouldn't you be?


Here's an overview picture of the kitchen ceiling leak. This is actually only one small section of the leaky area.



Here's a closer shot. Those "flowers" are intriguing, aren't they?



And here's a lovely close-up, for the botanists who would like to identify this for me. I'm using the term "mushroom" loosely here, but I feel pretty confident we are talking fungus, right?