oh the joy of home ownership and...yup, the selfie

I woke up yesterday morning to find that the rug in the little bathroom was wet. As was the floor around the toilet.

great

Turned off the water to the toilet, took the rug outside, got a towel and wiped up all the water which kept seeping up from beneath the linoleum tiles and from the bottom of the wall. Eventually got it all dry and stuffed another towel around the baseboard and went about my business waiting to see if more water appeared since I wasn't sure if it was really the toilet leaking or we had a leaky pipe in the wall.

and then I promptly forgot about it

Fast forward to evening when I checked on the towel which was wetter. Not a good sign.

I worried about that all night envisioning having to tear out the wall to get to the leaky pipe. Just what we need. I finally got up a little after six and checked on the little bathroom. The towel was soaking wet and there was water standing on the floor and I could hear a drip drip drip. Checked the toilet and both the bowl and the tank were full.

shit crap damn fuck

Went and got towel number three and while I was wiping up the water I noticed that the base of the toilet had water on it which struck me as an anomaly if the leak was in the wall. Then I noticed that there was a trail of water from the handle on the tank downwards and that was the dripping I heard. Looked at the water level in the tank again and it was up to the handle so I removed enough water from the tank for it to be at it's proper height. No more dripping water noise.

well, that's encouraging

I've been checking on it about every hour or so, wiping up the water that is still seeping up from under the tiles. I went in a minute ago and the towel was wet and water was starting to accumulate on the floor.

shit crap damn fuck

Looked at the handle and once again, water was dripping out. Remember, I turned the water to the toilet off yesterday morning and now the water level has increased back up to the handle.

OK, maybe not so bad

So now I have emptied the toilet bowl and tank, I'm on my fourth towel, and I'm waiting to see if the tank fills up because either I didn't crank the valve off hard enough or the valve is faulty and for sure the innards are faulty since the water level is not supposed to get so high it leaks out the handle.

Of course, it still could be a leaky pipe in the wall.