The Great Flood of 08-08-08

First of all, thank you for all the kind comments and support for my sister and the family. We are all doing a bit better, and the memorial service is tomorrow, so that will bring some closure too I am sure.

On to...er...happier (?) things...LOL!

This morning I went to our soon to be apartment to start painting, and I chose to begin in the bathroom because it is my least favorite part of the apartment and I thought some color would make it happier. I started painting the walls, and whne I got to the pipe that ran out of the ceiling to the toilet (it is a basement apartment in a house...) I rolled paint on it and much to my surprise (to say the least) the PIPE CAME OFF! Oh my goodness...I freaked out of course.

There is all this water gushing into the apartment and I have no idea where the water shut-off thingie for the house is or what to do and no one is home upstairs and the landlord wasn't answering his phone. So I called my little sister, who took an INCREDIBLY long time to travel the 6 blocks from her house, and called my little brother, who implied I was less than brilliant because I could not find the water shut off thingie...all the while fretting because my apartment is rapidly filling with water. When Kenna got there she was no help...I could not get my dad (just down the alley at my brother's house) to answer the door and I kid you not I considered calling 9-1-1 just because I had NO idea what to do! LOL!

Finally I called my mom at work and she gave me the number for a plumber and he LAUGHED at me...but he came over. Phew. Then he couldn't find the water shut off thingie either!!! LOL! Finally he found it sealed in the island that separates the kitchen from the living room. By the time he shut the water off there was about 2-inches of standing water in my apartment. We spent the next four hours using a carpet steam cleaner with a 1-gallon (tops!) collection container to slowly suck up the water.

My landlord finally called and explained that he had been sick in bed all day...luckily other than the ceiling needing to be replaced there was no real damage. Considering the fact that the water had rinsed the wet paint off the walls and flooded it on to the carpet, I would say it is a small miracle that more damage was not done.

My friend Cara showed up later with her camera...I wish she had gotten there sooner so I could have had pictures of the full extent of it, but these are what she did get. What a craaaazy day!!!

Anyways, now that I am feeling better I will be back online again! Looking forward to catching up here (again) SOON! =)