As I pulled into my driveway after a fun get together with my friends, I noticed water running out from the side of our house. Trouble I thought, but I was not expecting what I found inside. When I opened the door, I could hear the loud gushing of water and a beeping sound. Luckily Anna was asleep, so I put her in her room quickly and ran to figure out what was going on. Our kitchen was drenched and I pulled open the cupboards under our sink to find water spewing everywhere! I couldn't even tell where it was coming from it was coming out so forcefully. Not sure what to do, I just sat there for a second, staring at this dilemma, realizing that every second I sat there, the more wet my house was getting. Finally thinking that I should shut off the main water, I ran downstairs to the laundry room to find the lever that Dave had shown me at least 5 different times. As soon as I stepped on our carpet downstairs, there was a SQUISH under my feet that I was hoping not to hear. I didn't expect the water to be down there too! Our entire downstairs was soaked! When I walked to the laundry room, the water went above my ankles and our stuff was floating everywhere. We have an old house and our laundry room isn't finished and so all of the pipes are exposed. Water was dripping from every pipe, so I thought that I had a leak somewhere in there too. I tried turning knobs and switches, but I knew they weren't the right ones. Of course when I need to remember something important, I don't. Luckily Dave answered my 911 page and reminded me the water shut off was from behind the door. duh! Why couldn't I remember that! Anyway, I'm getting carried away with this description. This could take all day. Sorry! Let me sum it up. Basically one of the pipes under our sink that connects to the main water valve randomly popped off. Fluke thing. I was gone about 4 hours, so who knows how long water had been gushing. A plumber came over and fixed it and a disaster clean up crew came to help us dry things out. They come by every day to check on the status of everything and hopefully it will all be dry by tomorrow! Luckily, we didn't have any huge losses. Just some furniture, some memorabilia (yearbooks, letters, etc) and wet carpet and walls. They'll send a rebuilding team next week to get started on fixing things up again. And hopefully we'll be good as new!
Our house has been a little crazy this last week to say the least. It's full of literally dozens of fans and dehumidifiers (it was 130% humidity in our house last week!) and weird floor mats on our hardwoods. We can barely hear each other in the house, so sorry if you've tried to call and we didn't answer, we probably didn't hear the phone! When we're in our bedroom with the door shut, it just sounds like you're on an airplane, but when you're anywhere else in the house, it sounds like you are right under the engine of an airplane. Maybe the constant hum is soothing for Anna. It might be too quiet when they finally take it all away!
Although it's been a hassle and it is sad to see our house in such disarray, I've learned a lot from this and surprises in life like this sometimes make you realize how grateful you are for what you have and to be prepared for anything. Here's what I've learned:
- check the pipes under all your sinks and make sure they're not plastic! Steel is the way to go!
- cardboard boxes suck! Rubbermaid all the way!
- Dave is very calm in stressful situations. (This should come in handy for his future career)
- I seem to lose my brain in stressful situations. (Although the disaster crew complimented me on how well I was taking this. I guess most women are in hysteria. I guess I was just in shock.)
- We have a lot of stuff we don't need.
- Homeowners insurance is a lifesaver!
- I need to be better about accepting help from others.
- We have an awesome family that helped us out so much! (even with my refusals)
I didn't get great pics of the flood (a little busy at the time), but Dave took a few for our insurance that just don't quite do it justice, but here they are:
This is the huge puddle going into our laundry room. You can't really see how deep it is.
Wet carpets in our entire downstairs!
Saggy walls and ceilings. When I saw this, I knew it was bad.
Our house now...
This is our kitchen. Everything but our bedrooms and bathrooms are covered like this.
(at least I have a good reason not to cook!)
and our downstairs looks like this everywhere.
And here's a picture of how Anna has handled this all. Happy with her dolly and her twiner PJs.
