I Needed To Downsize Anyway...

Had a staff meeting in another office 45 minutes away yesterday. That meant I had to roll out of bed early to get there by 8:30am... I went through my usual morning routines: vitamins, breakfast, check my email, let the dog out, give her food and water, blah... blah... blah. Then realize that I needed to throw some clothes in the dryer so I have something to wear.

I start walking down the stairs to the basement where the laundry area is... What the?!!! There was at LEAST 6" of water in my basement. Plastic storage tubs were laying on their sides... stuff was floating in the water. I was in the middle of the water before I realized the dehumidifier was attached to an extension cord that was still plugged in. Yikes! I yanked the plug from the wall and waded my way through the water. Not even two days before, I had sorted laundry and it was all laying on the floor covered in water.

Why was there so much water? It had rained and rained and rained all night long. We had flash floods and my basement had filled to at least 8" of water. It was worse than last Labor Day. (I got halfway to my staff meeting and received a phone call that it was cancelled due to flooding.) As I ascended the basement steps, I thought to myself.... "Well, I've been wanting to downsize." LOL... Gotta maintain a sense of humor.

My guess is that there was at least 12" of water in my backyard, since debris caught in the fence was that high. Heavy stuff in my garage floated from the sides to the center. The electric "eyes" for the garage door openers shorted out. The landlord now has to replace the entire opener system on both sides (the neighbor's and mine). I still don't know if my washer and dryer work properly after sitting in so much water.

I had all my stuff on 3" plastic pallets... lotta good THAT did! Everything sitting directly on the pallets had to be gone through and any books and school papers are being tossed. I took a half day off work and started the clean up.

I had to wring all the clothes by hand. My Mom said she'd wash everything so I took 4 big baskets of wet clothes to her. I was going to take them to the laundromat, but figured it'd be more time efficient for Mom to do it while I cleaned the mess in the basement. Gotta love my Dad... As I was getting ready to leave their house, he says to me: "Need any help?" LOL, he doesn't even have his stitches out from surgery yet! (That's all I need is for him to be falling down the basement stairs.)

Three hours later and barely making a dent, I was sick of the clean up and my temperament was getting a bit aggravated, but I forged on. My sister came to help since I was storing a bunch of her stuff in the basement. Not even 5 minutes after she arrived, I fell down the last 4 or 5 stairs to the basement. I jammed both wrists and smashed the back of my head against a step. I have a huge bump on my head! My neck and my wrist hurt! My sister grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer and I had her get 4 ibuprofen. I could tell I'd be having a headache soon.

After about 10 minutes, I was back at cleaning. I had carpeting that needed to be pulled up and still lots of water that needed to be dried up... and of course, lots of boxes that needed to be gone through.

You'd think falling down the stairs would be enough damage for one day. But noooo... I dropped a plastic pallet on one of my toes (Yes, I was barefoot walking through the wet basement because I didn't want my shoes to get nasty). I have a big black bruise on that toenail. No wonder it hurt like an SOB when it happened!!! It almost hurt worse than hitting my head.

While my sister was there, S showed up and helped remove the carpeting. He also put a big AC unit in the basement window to help dry up the water. A little while later, the landlord showed up to assess the damage. He re-lit the water heater and made sure the furnace/CA worked OK. I wasn't about to start any of those things on my own. He's going to be renting a dumpster for us to get rid of the garbage. My backyard is strewn with wet boxes and "stuff".

By 10pm, most of the basement floor was dry but it smelled VERY VERY musty. My asthmatic lungs were reeling from being in the damp environment all day.