The week is over

So we got back into the house on Wednesday and the worst of the mess is now over. Rcovery is still in the works but will take several weeks before that can be done. We were able to put protection over the holes so that any rodents do not come into the house. The cats are back down there tonight. Life is slowly getting back to normal.

Also got the plants outside again. They were cluttering up the hallway when we had two nights of slight frost, and now can be back outside, which is better for them, for at least a week or so,

The Puddle Turns into a Waterfall

The plumber came this morning to look at the slight leak that had made an appearance on the carpet in the basement. His first job was to get me to sign paper saying that finding the leak could be as much as $250. Knowing the house as we do, this was not a problem. He also called their sister company who does restoration – ie clears the rooms so that they can do what they need to do, and cleanses/dries the carpet etc etc.. The leak was established to be about 10 feet left of the hallway – ie right at the far end of the junk room where two kids have offloaded their entire dormrooms until they get a place of their own.

The room was floor to ceiling stuffed with ’stuff’. Restoration took the ’stuff’ out so that plumber could find the leak. Three holes later it was established that the waterfall was indeed along a pipe. A pipe in the ceiling of the basement under the crawl space where there was no access courtesy the halfwit that finished the basement, and sold us the house.

In the process of unearthing the waterfall, plumber found some rats, so I called the people who have been unsuccessfully treating us for rats over the past 14 months. Three rats were dead, one disappeared though, so it is assumed that this one must have been bright enough to play dead until the light was taken away.

With half the wall down and some of the ceiling, the price tag was going up. Every 30 minutes or so the cry for ‘Ma’m” came out from the house and another problem had been uncovered and another price to clear had to be established.

The culprit was, it seems, was a rat, or maybe more than one, had found their merry way into the basement and taken a liking to the sewer pipe. So much so, that they had nibbled all they way through a cast iron sewer pipe and thus had caused a ‘bit of a problem’ for everyone.

So now I had three companies in the basement: the plumber, the restoration guys and the pest control guy (who heard the name over the intercom and didn’t need the address because he has been here so often). They all look at the damage and ‘humph’ and ‘hah’ about how nasty these little critters can be, and compare grissly stories about the ‘big one’ that Mrs so and so had.

The restoration company placed megga fans that could fly a jet engine into the basement and indicate that no sane creature will dare to enter with that noise going on, and depart. I think, or even hope, that they have tripped a circuit breaker because half the electrical sockets, including my computer one, are now dead as a doornail. They will return in a day or two to check on drying out problems and hopefully find the electrical glitz at the same time. The pest control guy, picked up dead carcasses and went off sighing that we still had problems – you think???. Plumber guy though realises that the pipe needs to be replaced and he was too broad across the belly to fit into the hole. Backup skinny plumber-guys are rare and the first one available cannot come until Wednesday – they really need to get more skinny plumbers I think.

By now I had called the insurance – this was way beyond a little leaky pipe. The good news is that they cover the damage; the bad news is that they do not cover the plumber, because sewer pipes are ‘maintenance’ and rodent damage is expressly excluded (note to self that we need to get they changed). So by now we are $1000 in deductable, and $3000 in plumber fees. All because of a rat problem that cannot be solved.

So at 2.30 everyone departed, leaving me and youngest to figure out how to deal with two kittens, numerous unknown rats who may or may not enter the basement because the wall had now been opened – we packed bags and booked into a hotel. Husband did finally call after an email, and phone message saying ‘you had better call and get an update on they day’. Did I mention he was in Paris???? I really hope it is is cold and rainy!

So here I am in the hotel keeping up with the blogs, and I am probably going to order another beer before long, so that I can relax.

Tomorrow is election day,- that should be not-fun. We, ie me and one other, real reporter person are suppose to cover 22 poling stations and get updates and attend winning party celebrations, so that the paper can get up to the minute updates on what he results are. Does that sound like lots of non-fun or what? I had planned on helping until 9,30 in the evening, but with being in a hotel, that will be nearer 8pm – i am not going to leave two kids (12 and 14) in hotel room alone.

I do hope that life settles down soon, and then I wil really be stretched to figure out what in the world to write in a blog in November.

The ongoing Puddle Problem

Well plumber number one did not return the phone calls, so I let my fingers do the proverbial walking to the yellow pages and found a nice big ad for plumbers. Very nice lady answered the phone -I do like people answering phones, not machines, when you have a problem. After just a few minutes she had secured a truck to come round late afternoon. At 5.15 he phoned to say he was on the way and would be 40 minutes. That was time to run to fast food place for nuggets and burgers for the charmers (kids).

Large truck arrives with guy to mend problem. He looked down the septic tank and thought we had a root blocking it. Funny thinks I, there isn’t a tree for 20 feet or more. He gets a light and decides that there is no root there (phew). So I flush all the toilets in the house and they obediently all enter the system on schedule.

So… the good news it is not a backed up septic system.
But to see what is causing the problem, they need to get behind the wall. This can be done with a light thing, which the gentleman in the truck didn’t have. Seems he was the guy to sort out the blogged up outside problems. A leaking thingy inside is a different sort of plumber. He called to schedule one for Sunday morning, or if they get a cancellation they will arrive this today.

We can shower but I cannot use the dishwasher or washing machine. I had planned to go shopping today anyway to get jeans and clothes, so instead of washing I will just buy a few extras!

After the plumber left I decided that the kids were old enough for me to leave them while I nip for an hour at the pub with some folks from work. I needed to get milk, fruit juice and cat food anyway, so a beer was kinda along the way. We spent an hour whining about work, objectionable editors etc, – nothing special but it was a much needed time-out from the drama of the basement being smelly, unsolved and unusuable. After shopping today I may have to face the fact that some of the things in the basement need to be moved so that we can see what has got wet and what is safe. I think I will stick to the shopping bit!

The puddle gets bigger

We have a pipe or something leaking down the basement wall – what fun.  Had to call the plumber who has not called back yet.  The puddle on the floor in the basement has grown and is now smelling.  I hope it is the chemicals in the carpet rather than contamination.  We relocated the bomerang kid (25, post college, who has a room in the basement) to the main floor spare room.  Husband seems to think that this is my fault somehow, but things like this always happen when he is away! 

The animal control folks are coming tomorrow to replace some traps so that we avoid last year’s problem of rodents in the kitchen after five months of pest control telling us that they had cleared the problem.

There are days when I think we bought a dud of a house.  It looked decent but everything that they touched to update or change was done on the cheap and is now showing as a disaster.  I wonder if the insurance will cover this, after claiming for a the cars.  Kiddo #2 reversed one car, the SUV, into the car, a Mustang, the night before he went to Europe for a year.  Fortunately the husband was away and we got the cars fixed before he returned!  The lady at the repair shop seemed to think that wives trying to get things repaired while husbands were out of town was quite common.  it seems we all want just a quiet life sometimes.

halloween

Halloween was a bit of a bust here.  The house is well back from the road, so in previous years we have gone out to join others.  This year that was not done, so we only got one set of larger, trick or treaters.  The youngest, 12, wanted to go out, but had the day off school because of a reaction to yesterday’s immunization.  We have a rule that no school in the day, no fun at night! They watched the Legend of Sleepy Hollow instead which was plenty scary enough I think!.