Friday, February 19, 2010

leak, water, flood, disaster, OH MY!!!!!

I learned a good lesson yesterday...
1. home ownership is sometimes hard (lesson learned: appreciate the years you lived under your parents roof!)
2. expensive things always seem to happen when you have no money (lesson learned: have a big emergency fund)
3. do not use cheap rubber supply lines in your plumbing (lesson learned: replace them all with metal)
4. make sure you know where your water shut off valve to the house is (I did know this already, but for anyone who doesn't...go find it immediately!)

Yes, the dreaded disaster all homeowners fear happened to me last night after only a mere 7 months of being in my new (old) home. I walked in the door having a great conversation with my cousin last night around 7:00 p.m. and as I entered the hallway my shoes began to "squish"!!!!!! I heard a noise and immediately knew this would not be good! I went into my bathroom to see that I had a leak and water was spewing everywhere! I froze in fear and asked my cousin what I should do??? I went to my water shut off and turned the water off so the leak stopped and then like any mature, responsible girl would do...I called mom! ha!! She wasn't home and I couldn't reach her (btw...why does she have a cell phone and never has it with her? i digress...)I called the plumber and they came out immediately and referred me to a Cleaning and Restoration Company that also came out immediately.

My nice, clean, organized, home quickly turned from this:

To this:
After about 2 hours of calling mom she finally was able to come over with towels and more importantly moral support! We were frantically laying towels down to try and soak up some of the water and then trying to pick up everything off the floor in the closets and bedrooms so things wouldn't get broken when the cleaning crew came in and started their work...you know how men can be?  They don't really appreciate things like m y porcelain tea pots and Madame Alexander Dolls! 

So today I am doing a lot of this:

Washing and drying all of the towels we used in the course of about 2 hours!  Working with these guys to dry out my house:
  All of this destruction because of this:
This is a supply line, girls.  This is a cheap (rubber?) one.  Don't use these!!!  Go and check under your sinks, toilets, and washing machines now to see if you have this little gray rubbery thing.  If you do you need to change them out because they will surely start to crack over time!  The plumber replaced mine with a stronger (metal?) one.  When I recover financially (like in 2027?) I will go back and replace the others in my home too.  But for now, I'm just praying strong that this doesn't happen again!  

Funny how things work out...I had already planned for a sub today because I was looking forward to:
1.  My 35th birthday weekend (yes i always take my birthday off of work, it's my gift to myself.  even if we just had 2 snow days this week i don't care, that's how i roll!)
2.  Angie was coming to Nashville to visit for the weekend and I had some really fun shopping adventures planned for us!  She has just accepted the referral of her daughter, Emma.  We were going to have so much fun and I'm so sad my emergency happened!  I called her and told her not to come; somehow I didn't think she would want to sleep and visit with my house completely torn apart!

Now I'm off to organize my paperwork, call my insurance claims adjuster, and try to get my house back together.  It's going to be a while.  These large Dehumidifiers and Fans have to stay in my house for like 3-4 days.  While they are here I can't sleep and stay in my house because my bedrooms are destroyed at the moment.  I finally made it to mom's house at midnight last night to stay with her.  Looks like I'll be there for a while.  Fun times! ha!

a few more pictures of the event just for fun!


5 comments:

Shauna and MacLean said...

Oh my gosh that is horrible! what an awful thing, I had my laundry room leak once but it was contained. Take care and hope you can have a great birthday weekend. Cheers!

Unknown said...

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Angie told me about your home disaster. I'm so sorry! Hope everything is getting back to normal somewhat. At least you weren't dealing with all of this with a little one home with you....right? (sigh)
Kelly

Jill said...

Oh my lanta, GA.... I can't believe this happened. I'm so sorry, Amy. It sounds like you handled the situation well and like a very mature adult. :)

Angie said...

Oh Amy...I am just so sorry! I have thought about you all weekend! praying that you are getting everything a little more back-to-normal.

Ironic...my word verification is porman...you are a "poor woman" after all of this!

Shea said...

What a pain! I'm sorry this happened, but hopefully there won't be anymore housing disasters when Molly comes home! At least not for a long, long time. It's a little easier to tolerate knowing that you're getting your home ready for a baby!

Happy Birthday!

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