i got the landlord down here to look at the fridge, after it expelled a bunch more water last night. i think this is what's wrong:
he's suggesting defrosting it, which is probably the simpler solution, if a particularly frustrating one. i mean, if it doesn't work, i've got a puddle of water on my floor with no answer, and we'll have to open it up, anyways. and, if it does, you'll never know for how long - if the problem is mechanical, it'll just happen again. so, if it were my fridge, i'd just take it apart and clean it from the getgo, rather than messing around with defrosting. it's not, though.
what that means, though, is that i need to reclean the space in preparation for recleaning it again later. ugh.
i'm going to start by eating.