the pod bay door

:: While leaving Sobey’s late this evening, I noticed a large amount of water on the road while driving on 23rd Avenue just east of 142nd Street. When I arrived home, I called the City of Edmonton and reported it. What I didn’t know was that a flood was happening in my house at the same time.

Those who know me know I am not a “tool time” kinda guy. I look forward to doing home renovations and repair in the same way I look forward to contracting a terminal disease, sticking needles in my eyes, or eating Ratatouille. Nonetheless, much progress, with the help of friends, has been made since last Friday regarding an overhaul of my living room. The walls have been painted, the carpet removed, the baseboards stripped from the wall, the front entrance tile ripped out, the carpet underlay torn up and bagged, staples pulled from the floor, and those small pieces of 1″x1″ pieces of wood with carpet nails pulled out of the floor with a prybar. All of this, in anticipation of Geoff’s visit tomorrow afternoon to begin installing the laminate flooring.

This evening, I worked hard to complete the removal of the underlay, the wood pieces, staples, and tile. After three hours of work, I rested a bit, then went to Sobey’s to buy something to eat. Upon returning home, I unpacked the groceries, opened a can of meatball stew, and prepared to watch a bit of tube before hitting the sack. Nature called, and I slipped into the downstairs washroom for a moment, only to find the floor covered in water. Not yet in Panic Mode, I checked around the toilet to see if there was a leak, and then felt a drop of water hit the top of my head. I looked up, saw that the ceiling was soaked, so I ran upstairs to the other washroom to find the toilet there overflowing ever so quietly, plugged up and still running for some reason. I grabbed the plunger and used it quickly, the water retreated and the toilet flushed, and I grabbed a whack of towels and tried to mop up as fast as possible. The water had leaked onto the adjoining rug at the bathroom door. I grabbed more towels, returned to the downstairs washroom, covered the floor with them, ran to my office where I had two large plastic bins that were once part of two separate paper shredders (long gone), and took them to the downstairs washroom to put one under the ceiling leak.

I notice then that there were other wet spots on the ceiling, and that the paint on small sections of the wall near said ceiling had expanded, having filled up with water. I decided to tap the ceiling where it was dripping with a very small nail, and the water began to flow out in a steady stream. When it began to subside, I mopped up further, and grabbed the heavily soaked towels to take to the washing machine in the basement. Little did I know what was happening down there.

I went down the stairs to the basement, only to discover that the water had seeped through the main floor, and soaked a large section of the basement, wetting cardboard boxes, soaking sections of the parquet flooring, and parts of the false ceiling. Grabbing more towels, I continued to clean up as much as I could. Realizing that few clean, dry towels were remained, I grabbed my sponge mop to continue the work downstairs.

The walls and ceiling in the bathroom are a mess, as is the basement. I’m too tired to be angry, but it does suck when you live alone and are without home repair and maintenance abilities when something like this happens. All I knew to do was to unplug and flush the feckin’ toilet, and clean up as much water as possible. Now I have a bathroom with a hole in the ceiling and parts of a wall that look like shyte, and a basement that has been flooded for the third or fourth time, and looks like double shyte. For all I know, the upstairs toilet had been ever-so-slowly overflowing all day.

At least the living room floor is ready for laminate flooring. Adding the laminate will increase the value of the house, so I’m told. Then again, having a three-level water leak will probably bring the value back down to what it was before the laminate is installed.

Ha ha ha. Oh what bloody fun it is to own a house.

What a crock a’ shyte. And how was your day today?

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 23:49 and is filed under House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.