Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Yuck!

Thursday night our kitchen drain clogged as we were cleaning up from dinner. We didn't think it was a big deal, just stop running water in it until it's fixed, right?
Unbeknownst to us our line to the sewer is linked to the apartment above us, and guess what that means? Yep, gravity is NOT our friend (anything they dumped down their sink came out of ours.

Friday night I got home from work and noticed that the entire kitchen floor was wet, and there was evidence in the empty sink that it had 'thrown up.' I'm thinking "Great, yuck, now we need to mop the floor." I headed back out the door again to pick up Ian and go to our ward Christmas party, blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the damage.
That night when we got home from the party we discovered that not only had it overflowed onto the floor, it had run the length of our counter top (ruining every food item along it's way), into every drawer (silverware, hot pads, towels, washcloths, cereal), under the sink, flooded under our oven, fridge, cabinet and into our pantry (ruining several food items and boxes storing our extra dishes). It REAKED. Oh, we were unhappy.
Our entire Saturday was taken up with cleaning the muck (save a trip to get a H1N1 shot for Ian). I think Ian mopped the floor 5 times with bleach (he did 90% of the work). I think we started at 9amish and finished at 11pm. It took forever! Ian had to pull out the oven and the fridge to clean underneath them. Mysteriously the drain wasn't clogged on Saturday. The drawers still smell of the sewer muck.

That afternoon Ian commented that the bedroom stunk (he never smells anything) but I didn't notice it (I smell everything).
Sunday afternoon we noticed again that the bedroom now stunk worse than the kitchen and couldn't imagine why. At about 10pm that night I went and checked the carpet next to the wall shared with the kitchen - AND IT WAS SOPPING WET!...about 5 feet into the bedroom. Somehow the 'flood' went under the wall into our bedroom, and I hadn't noticed because that wall is covered with boxes (flood fodder), a dresser, my hospital suitcase and a step ladder to help me get into our tall bed. I could have cried!
We spent about an hour pulling everything off of that wall, assessing damage/no damage and moving it to another location.

I am really glad that we weren't coming home Sunday morning with a brand new baby to discover the big mess. This should hopefully be all cleaned up before next week and we really are bringing him home.
People are telling me that since the pad is soaked it is going to mold and mildew fast. The carpet cleaners are supposed to come Friday. What a mess!

1 comment:

Diana said...

I am so sorry about that mess. We lived in a similar situation but were hooked to 6 apartments. We would try to call everyone and beg them not to run any water. I started a habit of never leaving anything in the sink because I hated coming home to the disgusting mess.
Good luck!