I'm Back! (You were gone?)... Adventures in the joys of home owning. :-(

[Crystal Clarity]

Ayup, had a bad couple of days. Basement flooded for one thing. :-(


While much of the country was suffering through a cold spell, we had a freakishly warm one for Maine this time of year. And it rained. ALOT. Over an inch and 1/2 of rain in less then 2 days. Add to that the melted accumulated snow and we are talking lots of water here. Pretty much all of which ended up in my basement.

Apparently what happened was that the old clay drainage pipe leading from our house had somehow broken off and then wedged pieces of itself into the rest of the pipe creating a blockage. REALLY bad timing for that. :eyes:

I realized there had to be some kind of issue when I heard my cat 'scream', make a splashing noise down there, and run back up the steps soaking wet. The basement is where I keep several litter boxes for her... (long boring story behind that)

So anyway, I go down to investigate and at first it barely registered. It was kind of a wtf-I-can-not-believe-my-own-eyes kind of moment. Our basement sometimes floods a little during the spring thaw, but this was nothing like that. I wish I had taken pics because you would not believe the amount of water!

14 friggin inches of standing water thru-out the entire basement! It even covered the bottom step and was nearing the second. It kind of reminded me of that scene from the movie 'Titanic' where the lead character goes down the steps and sees things floating around everywhere. OK it wasn't THAT bad but still... Oh. My. God.

My first thought was that I needed to 'rescue' one of the litter boxes because my cat is 18 years old and when she's gotta go, she's gotta go. And it was too rainy and wet for her to do it outside. So I put on some water shoes, (for some reason I didn't think to put my knee-high mud boots on) hike up my nightgown, and go for it. YUCK!!! It was cold, icky and up way past my ankles, halfway to my knees.

The closest litter box is about 10 feet away floating around near the washing machine. I quickly scoop that up, deposit it in the upstairs bathroom and then go back down to survey the damage.

Unfeaking-real! About 3 cord of last year's wood (the good, once dry stuff) is soaking wet on all bottom layers of the stacks. A pile of laundry along w/several pillows that I had intended to wash were all under water. An old lantern once filled w/kerosene is lapping up against the corner wall. And it stinks of kerosene. Stuff is floating around everywhere including the other two litter boxes. A giant bag of kitty litter (the expensive kind -grr) is a ruined gob of gook and the gas hot water heater pilot light is out... Yes the water got that high.

Thankfully the electric fuse box is up high enough to have not gotten wet, or my ill planned litter box rescue excursion could have been a HUGE shocking mistake. :dunce:...:scared:

So anyway, I've spent the past 2 days cleaning up the mess and w/only a few exceptions have been away from DU the whole time. To make matters worse, the power goes out for a couple of hours (nothing unusual for around here) so it just adds to the issue of trying to dry everything out cause it killed the fans I had placed all around. The water went down very quickly after my SO found and took care of the blockage but everything still had to be dried out. The old woodstove down there has been put back to use and is helping. I had forgotten how well that thing cranks out the heat! Our new one upstairs isn't nearly as good.

There's still alot more to do but I'm giving myself a break for now. Eye-Yi-Yih! :yoiks:

BTW, I wonder if this is going to create a mold issue. Does anyone know? Oh, and sorry for the long, boring 'airing out' of grievances...(stuiped pun intended) Hey, it IS Festivus time! :shrug: