Tripod member H_WILSON asks:
Help! I live in a loft with exposed bathroom plumbing pipes (running vertically between all the floors). I hear water running 24 hours a day, and I have to keep a bucket in my bedroom to catch all the drips that come out of the hole in the ceiling. Is there a way to fix this without tearing a hole in my (cement) ceiling? I can forget about asking the landlord to fix it...

Handy Girl Karen suggests:
You need to investigate further. The water is obviously running from somewhere, but it could be anything — from someone's unstopped toilet tank to a drippy faucet on another floor. If you have exposed pipes, you can punk-rock some sound insulation by wrapping the pipes in plastic and cloth and securing the whole thing with duct tape. Then you could spray paint it or hang a decorative curtain over it to make it more attractive.

In order to fix the leak in your bedroom, you need to locate it, and I'm not sure if that's going to entail getting into the ceiling or wall to find a leaking pipe, or just walking upstairs to tell your neighbor to put the shower curtain inside the tub while showering.

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