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I’m looking for an apartment. I recently viewed one and asked the owner (it’s a condominium) if he could demonstrate the shower for me, as I wanted to see if it had enough water pressure. Well, something was not connected, the water would not come out, so he tried to connect a hose or something.
I went to look at another bedroom and when I came back to the bathroom, water was flowing into the room uncontrollably, and flooding the bathroom, with the man desperately and unsuccessfully trying to force the hose onto the water outlet while all the water was coming out.

After a few minutes he ran out of the bathroom and at the entry door to the apartment, there was a missing tile in the ceiling. He couldn’t reach the ceiling so he put two chairs precariously on top of each other and stood on them so he could reach into that empty tile. He almost fell off the chairs. Apparently there was a shutoff valve for the water inside the ceiling. And it was hard for him to reach, he had to stick his entire arm into the ceiling. But finally he managed to shut the water off.

Being from a western country, I am used to having shutoff valves in the bathroom itself. This was a fancy expensive condominium, and it lacked such a basic safety feature.

In my years in Vietnam, I have experienced several incidents where apparently water could not be shut off.

Once, I was in a hotel and the water knob in the shower apparently broke. I could not shut the water off. I had to run out of the room practically naked to tell the manager. He had to go into the next room to shut the water off. There was no way to shut it off in my room.

So whoever was in the next room had to let him in immediately, even if he was in the middle of making love or something.

Another time, I was staying in a hotel and saw that water was flowing out of another room into the hallway, and cascading down the staircase. The renter of that other room came running out of the room in panic; apparently he could not shut it off.

So my question is, is this the norm in Vietnam? Difficult or impossible to shut off water in an emergency? If that’s the case, how do they install appliances like bathroom water heaters and washing machines. Don’t you have to shut the water off to install these?

Please tell me about your experiences with this issue. Thanks.
-@ChoculaD

I've never had THAT problem here, but it was very entertaining reading about your experiences. Sincere thanks for sharing!

I spent my first year here in an apartment building and never had a problem. A year later, when my wife and I moved into her elderly parents place so we could take care of them I was startled to find there was no water shut off valves in the either the kitchen or the two bathrooms. In order to cut off the water one had to climb up into the attic and shut the water off at the tank. What a royal pain in the butt! I had never heard of such a thing. Needless to say, when we had the house remodeled I made sure they installed cut off valves.     

It’s the norm. Whenever you take on a rental, ask the landlord where the stopcock is (usually in ceiling in new apartment) and make sure you have or a get a safe modern stepladder. Note: workman commonly have neither decent stepladders nor dust sheets - make sure you do before you start even minor maintenance.

Thanks for the helpful replies!

Thanks for the helpful replies!
-@ChoculaD

Three homes since arriving mid 2017. Two were less than 10 years old, one was a brand new build.

NONE had shut-off valves. To install my washer in each, I had to cut the water supply to the entire house.

And if you think that's bad, wait until you take a gander at the "electrician's"  handiwork.

(if you find a ground wire, please let us know)

We had a similar but opposite experience.  We moved into a condo unit that was a year old but had never been lived in.  No water would come out of the hot tap in the shower. We contacted the owner and he had to have the wall torn open where they found that the PVC pipes had been too aggressively heat welded so that the melted plastic had filled a section of pipe which had to be replaced.  I don't recall where it was but they must have managed to shut off the water main.  The other thing in that bathroom was that the floor drain next to the toilet was not at the lowest point so that we had to sweep toward the drain when shower water got into the main section of the room.  If we had owned the unit, I would have been a little more agressive about fixing the floor too.  I expect every expat in Vietnam has at least one poor construction workmanship story.

sometimes I find it difficult to turn on & off my water but in this case its an age thing

The last two hotels I stayed in did have water cutoff knobs in the bathroom, so it's not unheard of. But soon I'm moving into the apartment complex that has the cutoff in the high ceiling. So, one of first purchases will be a stepladder.