Waterworks

So this last weekend we went to my high school reunion.

We swore we were going to turn off the water before we left, but we forgot.

We got up early in the morning on Sunday to return home, made a pit stop to see some family, and battled traffic all the way back to the rat hole. Loaded with stuff, we went to the door, opened it, and were immediately confronted by a waterfall. Pictures don't really do it justice-it was pouring out of the light fixtures and gaps in the ceiling.

Probably the smartest thing we ever did was install the water shutoff valve close to the house, and that's where my spouse ran as I dashed into the house to survey the damage. There was a couple of inches of water on the floor of the laundry room. The bowed floor worked to our advantage.

The carpet in the den had soaked up some of the water, but not enough to damage anything in the den. We had moved most of the stuff in the laundry/entry room when we were investigating the burst pipe rot that there wasn't much in there. Except our shoes. Pretty much all our shoes.

Most of the water was in the laundry room, with just a little bit in the kitchen, and we knew immediately what had happened. After all, this had sort of happened once before. The compression fittings we had put up in the attic space to temporarily repair the lines to the washing machine had let go. We don't really know why. He rushed up into the attic space and began to drill holes in the ceiling to drain the water that was sitting up there.

I caught the water below in buckets, sponging it up as best I could with a mop.

You can see in the photo that I'm wet, but I was actually pretty soaked. My hair was all wet, my clothes were mostly wet. The washing machine was full of water from the ceiling, and the pails filled up really quickly once the ceiling drain holes were drilled. This water wasn't just any water, either. The water that was raining down upon everything was tea made from old blown-in insulation from who knows when, mouse carcasses and droppings, and D-Con. Lovely thing to be drenched in.

Several hours later we'd gotten the sodden insulation out and mopped up most of the water. It was really late, but luckily our managers were really understanding, and I worked a half day the next day. We took the time partially to rest and partially to clean up. I had to tear up a lot of the linoleum and some of the den carpet while he converted the compression fittings to threaded fittings.

The linoleum was really old, and because it was so wet, the glue stuff was really sticky and nasty. It horrible, and the floor was all wavy. In fact, our dryer seems to have sunk a little bit. Not a good sign.

We're probably going to have to tear out all the wood in that room, floor joists, footings, and all. It's just a mess. But it could have been worse - it could have been the rest of the house as well. As it is, the damage is isolated pretty much to that room.

And we're thinking about running the plumbing under the house when we redo it.

I meant to post this sooner, but being tired from the weekend combined with working late to make up the lost time and going to classes for work hindered me.

This weekend we've rented a dumpster (that was supposed to have shown up 5 hours ago, so we're not hopeful it will shoe up at all) for all our construction garbage. We'll finally be able to rid our lot of some of the crap that's lying around, which would be really good. It's even better because we suspect that rats have moved into a pile of lumber just off the side of our house. We saw a big, brown rat on Monday morning as we were standing on the porch.

I seriously doubt it lives in the house with us. Rats are smarter than to live in such a run-down place.