Water, Water Everywhere...

...including the basement floor.

We check the basement every so often when there is heavy rain, even though we've never had a problem. We did construction a few years ago so the crazy half of the MBB/FBB couple has always felt it necessary to check the basement more regularly since then.

Usually I send one of the kids down and tell them to take off their shoes and run their foot along the perimeter of the room so they can feel if anything has seeped in.

Thursday night I asked MBB if we should check, and he said yes, but we got busy cleaning up the kitchen (yes, I know that's the funniest thing written on this blog in a long time), and forgot about checking and went to sleep.

The next morning I asked one of the kids to go downstairs and check. She came up and said:

"Uh, we have a big problem, and I don't need to take off my shoe to see it!"

There was about an inch of water in one of the basement bedrooms, the puddle pooling between the beds. It could have been worse. I heard of a few people who had upwards of four inches in their basements. Good thing we forgot to check the night before, had we known sooner, I doubt there was anything we could have done about it at 11:30 at night except worry (one of us, anyway)

Instead when I found out, I did what any good American does when faced with water in the basement. I called my homeowners insurance company. I don't know if they cover the "extraction and remediation"( a really fancy way of saying "sucking out all the water and spraying anti-microbial solution"), but I figured I'd get them involved first and let them tell me what to do.

Since the rains had been so prolific, and there had been so much melting snow, the cleaning companies were,pardon the pun, deluged with work. No one could come until Saturday, so it was going to be Sunday. In a way I was glad, (once they told me waiting seventy two hours would be no problem), because then we would know if more was coming in. MBB opted to spend two hours getting rid of the water we could see pooling atop the carpet (we have a wet-dry vac), then ran a dehumidifier and turned on the ceiling fans.

They came Sunday, checked the walls for water (anyone know a sheetrock guy?), got rid of the rest of the water IN the carpet, and left us with dehumidifiers and fans. Thanks to my sister's flood issue many moons ago we did not use padding when we put down the basement carpet, it's glued right to the cement. It's a little hard if you sit on it, but the kids don't seem to mind, and it saved us from needing to rip up the carpet.

I'm waiting to hear if we're actually covered, and figure out if this was a fluke thing, or if I need to re-waterproof the outside walls. One guy seem to think it was because the water was SO high, a lot of people who never had problems were having problems.

I'm not sure that this doesn't fall in the "They don't make things like they used to category," - this room is only four and half years old.