The good, the bad, and the ugly

The bad. 

• We came home from our fun weekend away to find our basement flooded. Again. 

The good. 

• It happened this year and not last year when we were gone for 3 weeks at Christmas. That would have been a sad homecoming. 
• I am 100% ready for Christmas fairly early for the first time probably ever. I had wanted to have merry holiday fun with the girls this week and not be dealing with a flood, but still, I’m not scrambling to be ready for Christmas. 
• I had invited some of D’s friends over for a gift exchange, and when we found the leak I sent a quick text to cancel. That simple text activated our ward family and we’ve been so ministered to. 
• Steve H. brought over a fan and shop vac that night. We literally couldn’t handle anything, so after we picked up the few things that were on the floor and kind of stabilized everything, we went to bed. 
• Steve H. and boys came over first thing and he took over my shopvac duties while their boys and our girls and I brought up all our toy bins, decoration storage, food storage, and light furniture that we could carry. We made roughly a million trips. And no one complained once. 
• Tony came by between jobs and helped open up the sump pump. We had a hydraulic pump put in after the last flood and that sealed it off, but with Tony’s help we were able to drain it more easily. 
• We were able to get a plumber to come immediately and we now have a working sump pump again. 
• Fred B. came over with dehumidifiers and an offer to use his pickup truck for whatever we needed. Since Servpro never called us back and we knew we’d have a truck, we decided to tear out the carpet our own darn selves. Again. 
• Sarah popped over for a hug and chocolate delivery. Perfect youcandoit sustenance. 
• Rachael showed up and said “I heard you had a flood, now have some blizzards,” with burgers, fries, and blizzards. It was a perfect break and pre carpet removal treat. 
• Steve and Quinton showed up about halfway through carpet removal and things got moving much more quickly. Matt was cutting carpet pieces, but they had to be fairly small because they still had a lot of water and the girls and I were fairly tired from our million trips carting things upstairs. With Steve cutting too and Q helping transport, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel a lot faster. 
• About 10 minutes after we finished the carpet removal as I was asking Matt to text Fred about using his truck, Tony showed up with his dump trailer and helped us load all the carpet and padding and damaged furniture and because it’s a dump trailer it tips back so we didn’t have to unload it too. 
• About 10 minutes after our last shower, Debby showed up with a delicious dinner. Admittedly, I haven’t cooked a lot lately because we’ve been running around, but the girls acted like they’ve never seen homemade food before and we were all so excited. And it was so tasty. 
• Tracie and crew were able to fill in for us for our WARM dinner assignment, and then dropped off the leftovers for dinner tomorrow. I debated still serving there till lunchtime when we decided to remove the carpet ourselves. I thought it would be a nice distraction and also nice for perspective and also fun to be with our friends. I’m really glad we made that decision because we wouldn’t have been able to finish the carpet and Matt is working today. 
• Bishop Wiest and several friends checked in all throughout the day. 
• And finally, our insurance will cover the whole basement. We can handle anything as long as it’s paid for. 

The ugly. 

This was a tough flood because we’re as certain as we can be without 100% proof, which, in this situation I don’t even know if there is such a thing as 100% proof, that our new’ish neighbors caused this. Thanksgiving weekend we noticed their French drain that’s between our houses was constantly running, just water pouring out all the time. Matt went out to look at it and man neighbor came out too and said he didn’t know why it was doing that and was calling a plumber. It’s been a month, and other than when we went a week with no rain, there is constant water. We’re the only ones on our street with a constant flow of water. Then, just last week they had a company put in a giant, across their whole yard, fence-to-fence patio. We don’t think these 2 things plus our basement flood are coincidental. 

We want to be good neighbors and also this is a huge pain and will come at a big expense, even with insurance coverage. We debated going to the hoa, or an attorney, but decided to try to be neighborly. Said neighbor deserves an academy award with his “oh no, you flooded?! Where do you think the water came from?” As his French drain continues its steady flow between our houses. 😩

We kept things cordial and he agreed to split the cost of a real French drain, or some other drainage measure between our houses. If that actually happens we’ll be mollified. I know they didn’t mean for a flood to happen, and also they’ve been careless. And if they don’t split the cost then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. 

You can see the water line where it leached up the curtains. 

So. Much. Water. 

My winter toes are not photo ready but I wanted to show how the water pooled around our feet as we squelched around. Also our feet were numb after a few minutes because it was so cold. 

Dozens of trips to empty dirty shopvac water. We loved our basement carpet, and at one point we were talking about the possibility of keeping it. But as soon as we cut the first swatch and saw how much water was on, in, and under the padding, we knew that was never a possibility. And in retrospect the water that came up was kind of gross. 

Staging area #1. 

Lunch of champions, from champions, for champions. 

Let’s go!

I recommend a summer basement flood. Winter flooding is coooold. It was fine when we were busy moving, but as soon as we stopped, especially after we’d started hauling carpet and were wet, it was so cold!

Lanes thought she could haul carpet with her skates. Makes sense to me. 

Our girls stepped up!

Moving fans all around. 

That giant hat still kills me. 

Strong baby bug!

Staging area #2

Wet carpet/furniture dumping ground. 

😩

And finally these 2 exhausted, sad, but will be fine grownups promptly fell asleep about 10 minutes into Elf with full tummies and full hearts. It was a hard day but good, just like so many learning days are.