At 3am, do not start by looking for the leak. Start by keeping your mother off the wet floor.
Ask her to stay where she is. Turn on the lights from a dry place. Bring her glasses, usual walking aid, and phone to her instead of asking her to cross the bathroom. If she has already fallen, use the first ten minutes after a fall before you deal with the water.
Now walk the route without her. Check it in order: the bed, the place where she stands, the bedroom path, the hall, the bathroom doorway, and the toilet. You are looking for the first wet place, not merely the largest puddle.
If water is near an outlet, cord, powered device, or wall switch, keep both of you away from that area. Do not touch electrical equipment while standing on a wet floor. The safety reason for that boundary belongs with the public references collected on the sources page.
If the water is spreading and you already know which shutoff controls it, close that shutoff from a dry position. If you do not know, call the building’s emergency maintenance number or a plumber. Do not learn a stiff valve, crawl behind a toilet, or open a wall while your mother is waiting to use the bathroom.
Make one dry trip possible
Give her another safe toilet plan for the rest of the night. That may mean using a different bathroom with you beside her. Do not send her around buckets, towels, tools, or a fan cord. Those objects become new parts of the route.
Dry the whole walking surface, including the bathroom doorway and the space where she turns before sitting. Pick up the wet towels when you finish. Test the route yourself in both directions with the same lights she would use.
If you cannot make every stop dry and open, close that bathroom for the night. Put a clear note on the door and tell her the alternate plan before either of you tries to sleep.
Decide whether this is cleanup or repair
Do it yourself when you can name the event, the water has stopped, and the area stays dry after cleanup. A tipped cup, water carried from a shower, or a missed splash may leave a cleanup job rather than a repair job. Record what happened anyway. If the same explanation returns, it is no longer a one-time explanation.
Hire the repair when you cannot identify the source, the floor becomes wet again, or water appears around a pipe, toilet connection, wall, cabinet, ceiling, or floor edge. A recurring wet floor needs someone to find and correct the source, not someone who only dries the surface.
Call a plumber for water that seems connected to the toilet, supply line, drain, sink, or another plumbing fixture. Call building maintenance first if she rents or lives in a community that controls repairs. If the water seems to enter from the roof, wall, heating or cooling equipment, or another unit, describe where it first appears and let maintenance direct the trade.
Do not ask a housekeeper to decide whether plumbing is sound. Cleaning and source repair are different jobs. You can hire both, but give each person a written task.
Ask for a route, not just a repair
When you call, say that the wet area sits on an overnight bed-to-toilet route. Ask whether the worker will identify the source, stop it, dry or isolate the work area, remove tools and materials, and tell you when the floor can be walked again.
Ask these questions before the visit:
What source will you inspect first? What parts may need to be moved or opened? Will the toilet be unavailable? Who restores the floor, wall, or cabinet if access is required? What will remain wet, loose, raised, or blocked when you leave? Who returns if water appears again?
If the worker cannot finish in one visit, require a clear overnight handoff. You need to know whether the bathroom is open or closed, which shutoff must remain closed, what must not be touched, and whom to call if the water returns.
Walk all six stops before you accept the job
Begin at the bed. Check the place where her feet land. Continue through the bedroom and hall. Pause at the bathroom doorway, where a towel, threshold cover, tool case, or drying cord may have changed the step. Finish at the toilet and inspect the space she uses to turn, lower herself, stand, and start back.
Run water and flush only if the repair worker says the fixture is ready for normal use. Watch the floor during the test and again after it. Then walk the route back toward the bed. A repair is not handed off while the route still contains water, tools, loose coverings, or an instruction nobody has written down.
Write down seven lines
Before you go back to bed, write:
Where the water first appeared.
What was running or had just been used.
Whether the water stopped.
What you shut off.
Which bathroom is open tonight.
Who owns the repair.
When the route will be checked again.
Add a simple sketch of the six stops and circle the first wet one. Take photographs from a dry place if they help the repair person understand the location. Keep the note where the next person caring for her will see it.
If your mother fell, felt faint, seemed newly confused, or describes a new physical problem, give the observation to her physician. The repair decision does not answer a clinical question.
If you need local nonclinical help arranging the next step, use Local help after a fall, St. Louis. The job tonight is smaller: keep her off the wet surface, make one usable toilet plan, and leave a written owner for the source of the water.