Monday, May 07, 2007

Tales of the Homeowner: 40 Days and 40 Nights

I used to think this rain was so great for two reasons:
1. It helped me put off mowing the lawn.
2. I didn't have to water the grass.

This morning, I came home to a water-logged basement, and I have come to the conclusion that I'm not a big fan of this rain crap. I'm all for the occasional sprinkle, but not where I expect Noah's Ark to come floating up the driveway at any given moment.
I've seen flooded basements before...a foot deep or more. Mine isn't that bad, and I think that is only because I have a drain in the storage room of the basement, and all the water is running into that. At first, my basement appeared dry, until I went into the storage room and it looked like a scene from A River Runs Through It. The water seemed to be coming from under the stairs, so I pulled up some of the foam tiles in the rec room so the water could run freely from Point A to Point B (which is the drain).
I emailed The Boyfriend and whined to him about it. He should share my concern because of all the stuff he has stored in my basement right now. He quickly emailed me back saying he would come by after he got off work, then he called my Mom who immediately called me to commiserate over my soggy basement, all the while deciding what she wanted to have for breakfast with her little sister (Mom is vacationing in Florida this week).
I'm not going to stoke out over this water thing, because I'm sure the folks in Greensburg, Kansas would be more than happy to trade storm problems with me. No, I will reserve my stroke for later. It's going to be a pain in the ass to clean up when all is said and done. It's rained before with no leaking, so I am going to attribute this to the fact that we've had ten feet of rainfall within one day and this is not normal. This explanation will enable me to sleep today, instead of waiting for The Boyfriend to stop by, and obsess about how the house is going to disintegrate into a big, wet pile of mush.
The drain is, well, draining. So, I am going to go to bed.

4 comments:

Faith said...

All I kept thinking yesterday was, "Thank god this isn't snow." That's the only thing that made me feel better about it.

My yard had better survive this water-logging, dammit.

I hope your basement winds up ok, too!

Unknown said...

I feel you pain. The house we bought in South KC leaked like a sieve, despite the previous owner swearing on his mothers grave that the basement never leaked. My advice is to clean your gutters out, extend your downspouts and do what ever you can to get water away from the foundation that and only buy ranches from now on.

Spyder said...

Bought a ranch/slab. No basement flooding! Woohoo! Just ordered a tornado shelter.$$$$ !!! It's never perfect. Believe me.

"The D" said...

I have a crawl space so that is where you need to tell the S&R people to look first when my house explodes.