Posted on

Update on the house

Flooded House
Click on the photo to see album

Click the photo above to see the entire album. One de-humidifier and 4 fans can be seen in this photo.

Janis took some in the middle of the night while the guys were working and then we took some when we returned home. At that point they had taken out some of the fans, but you can see the holes they drilled in the wall after they tore out the baseboards. They said in our room the water went up the wall about 6″. When Janis met them to test the humidity in the walls two days after they took out the carpet padding it was 8% in the good walls and up to 92% in the walls of our bedroom. Some of the other walls were 85%. The carpet downstairs is completely shot as is the flooring in our powder bath. We are very thankful that it didn’t get as far as the wood floors in the kitchen.

We have no idea when the leak started. We left for our trip on Thursday June 23rd. Mike’s cousin Janis came to check in on the house on Sunday, but would have had no reason to go in our room or bathroom and for all we know it could have been wet then. On Wednesday the 29th our neighbor got home from work and could see water seeping from the side of our house under our bedroom windows and pouring out of a spot on the corner. He immediately grabbed his tools out of his garage and turned our water off at the street. Then he banged on our door and when he didn’t get an answer he drove over to our HOA presidents house to ask him to call or email us to let us know what happened. That neighbor called me and we immediately called Janis to go over and check. Sure enough she could see that our bathroom, bedroom, closet and powder bath had definitely flooded. She could feel water in the living room also, but couldn’t tell how far it had gone. She returned later to meet Blackmon Mooring’s crew at midnight to begin hauling out the carpet padding.

Thanks to the quick thinking of our neighbor (who used to be a City of Fort Worth Water Leak Inspector) we didn’t lose a ton of stuff. It is such a blessing for us that he noticed. He told us that even though he left that job earlier in the year the habit of looking at people’s foundations hasn’t left him. Praise God for that. The water could have spread to the kitchen and messed up the entire downstairs. Words can’t express how grateful we are to him for just shutting off the water and looking for us later.

Flooded House

We had help from Steve at our church who went to the house to drain our waterbed the next day so that Blackmon Mooring could come back and get the rest of the carpet pad out. Grammie also came out to meet a crew from Blackmon Moorning. Many, many other people offered to help us since they knew we were on vacation. EVERYONE encouraged us to finish our trip and they could help oversee things. In the end it was good that we stayed because they had to turn the A/C off to get the house as hot as possible and we had no running water. If we had left early it just would have been that much longer in a hotel when we had already paid for the condo at the beach.

Flooded House

Once we returned home and checked into a hotel we headed over to the house to see the damage for ourselves. I was very happy to see that it was basically just a giant mess. The workers just got stuff out of the way to get the wet padding out and get the carpet drying. So our biggest job will be putting everything back in it’s proper place once the new flooring is in. I swept and vacuumed the main areas and that helped me a lot. Our DVD holder in the living room and our dresser are the only things that were damaged. Some of the flowers died and I will most likely lose my square foot garden because the water was off and is still off.  We had a lot of stuff melt because the A/C was off and it was over 100 degrees in the house for days. Nadia loved smushing around the Costco size bag of melted chocolate chips before I tossed it. Quite a few things in my coupon stockpile melted, but thank goodness all that stuff was basically free.

Flooded House

Flooded House

That is as high as our thermostat goes. It must have been at least 105 in the house, maybe higher. It was 102 outside and we had to send the girls out to play to cool off!

So your next question is: What caused it? As of now the plumber thinks it’s a slab leak. He will be back on Monday with more sophisticated equipment to test. He turned the water on and asked us to use the house like normal for one day and keep an eye out. We all expected water to come pouring out when he turned it back on and it’s didn’t. As soon as I know the results I will report back.

As I said in my thankful Thursday post – my greatest gifts were with me at the beach. Everything else is just stuff which we shouldn’t hold on to so tightly anyway. Are the next few weeks going to be annoying dealing with repairs, insurance and everything else? Yes, but our life is still blessed beyond measure.

Thanks to everyone who offered to help us and poured out their love and time to us. And hey, we get new carpet!

Posted on

Thankful Thursday

Last night at dinner we found out that our house most likely flooded. Our neighbor saw water seeping out of our house and when we didn’t answer the door he turned the water off at the street. He then drove to the HOA presidents house to ask him to call us. We called Mike’s cousin Janis and asked her to drive right over. Sure enough the downstairs of the house was flooded.

So today I am thankful for:

  • Janis being willing to meet the clean up crew at our house at midnight and stay up all night while they worked – texting back and forth with Mike to keep him updated.
  • For Mike staying up all night to answer questions and pay our deductible in the middle of the night while I tried to get some sleep.
  • For our friends and family who have been willing and able to help us today.
  • For Steve heading to our house to drain our bed today since the clean up crew didn’t last night and they left the wet carpet under our bed. (and for the others who volunteered to go and do that)
  • For insurance and the money to pay our deductible.
  • For technology to get this done from 1200 miles away.
  • For the fact that it’s just STUFF that was destroyed and will need to be replaced. My greatest gifts are with me at the beach 🙂
  • For the fact that God is good all the time – even when things happen that we just don’t expect. God is using His people once again to show us how very much He loves us.
Posted on

A Hospital, Mouse, & Geyser of Mac-n-Cheese

We have been really busy for the last few weeks so I didn’t worry about packing for our vacation. I planned to help with VBS on Monday and Tuesday, then have all day Wednesday to prepare for the trip. Monday at VBS a couple of my girl friends were SHOCKED that I wasn’t already packed, since I am so organized. But I thought, “Hey, we just came off of the China trip, packing for the beach will be no big deal.” Monday night I did all the laundry in the house and set the girls’ stuff out. Then I thought Tuesday after VBS and naps I could run the errands. Then I would have ALL DAY Wednesday to get the packing done.  Piece of cake!

Tuesday we went to VBS and when the girls were home and in bed I started thinking about my packing list. No worries, I have plenty of time. At 3:15 the phone rang. “Hello.”  Mike’s Mom: “Louanne, I fell and cut the heck out of my hand!” Me: “What? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Mike’s Mom: “You better talk to them up here.” (Assisted living center director gets on the phone) “Louanne, if you can you better come up here and get her and take her to the hospital. She is going to need sutures. We don’t want to take chances.” Me: “Okay, I am on my way and will be there as soon as I can.”

I pick Linda up and get her over to the emergency room literally around the corner from where she lives and we get signed in. The wonderful staff at the hospital get Linda all taken care of and we are out of there. They tell me what I need to buy for her and when she needs her stitches out. At this point it’s way past her meal time and Linda is diabetic so my next goal is to get some food in her system. I get her back to her little room at the assisted living place and all settled. I tell her I will be back tomorrow with all the bandages and everything else she needs in the morning. I call Mike and tell him I will grab food and head home. At that point it’s almost bedtime for the girls and I think, “No problem. I have all day tomorrow.” I make my packing list, start a little packing pile and get some sleep.  The girls and I get up on Wednesday and we are like machines in the morning. We hit 8 places in 2 hours to get everything done. I get the girls some lunch, we play and they head down for naps. Mike gets home from work and we start to pack the car.

Mike tosses the bags with beach chairs into the trunk and a little mouse runs out! It’s just sitting there in the trunk.

Mouse_in_a_300c_01

Mike takes a quick photo and says that we need to get it out and he is afraid it’s going to go down a hole so he needs to get him quick. Can you guess what happened? The mouse bolted down the hole. So Mike takes everything out of the trunk and removes the liner and pulls out Nadia’s car seat and looks all over the place. No mouse! Mike finally gave up the search and we put the car back together. I was having visions of it eating the electronics of the car!

We head into the house not believing that delay when we were trying to get the car loaded up. Mike goes to rinse something in the sink and turns on the disposal and feels water hit his legs and feet and sees it coming out of the cabinet door. He stops the disposal, opens the cabinet and it’s filled water and shredded Mac n Cheese! WHAT?!? So we have to pull everything out from under the sink – it’s all covered in water and mac and cheese. C-O-V-E-R-E-D! Then Mike tries to figure out what happened. He sees the problem, fixes it and then decides he has to head to Home Depot for a mouse trap and something for the sink. I finish cleaning everything off and get it back under the sink. At this point it’s like a comedy routine around our house. What else can you do but laugh?

We have dinner and I take the girls up for a bath. Get Amelie out and in her jammies and tell her not to try and get back in the tub while I wash Nadia’s hair. I start to soap up Nadia and feel Amelie right behind me and I tell her to stay back because she is always trying to toss stuff in the bathtub when it’s Nadia’s turn. Well she falls over and she starts screaming. “ear moooommmmyyyy!” I grab her and sure enough her ear it scraped and very quickly turning a bright shade of purple. Mike brings up a gel pack and rocks her while I finish with Nadia and all I can think is, “I am ready for this vacation!!”

So now at 10:45 pm the girls are sleeping, the car is packed (complete with mouse traps under the seats…seriously), the clothes for tomorrow are laid out and I am ready for the BEACH!