A Sunday Disaster.

Why do things always have to happen on the weekends? If something in your house is going to break, malfunction, or flood, it always happens on the weekend.

My latest disaster was a stool that didn't work properly and flooded my hall bath and part of the hallway. I didn't even know about it until my dog woke me from a sofa doze in front of the tube and wanted out. That is when I heard the water running. My first thought ws that my Mother, she is 93, had left water running in the sink. Oh no, the stool had been running over for at least an hour, and squish squish squish went the carpet as I went in to discover what the problem was. It is now 9:00 on a Saturday evening.

Fortunately I have quite a bit of experience with this type of thing having worked for several years for a Disaster Restoration Contractor. I had seen a lot of water damages and knew what to do, but gad, who feels like doing that at 9:00 on a Saturday night.

Oh well, first things first. I got the stool shut off and the water bailed out of it and after a little while with the drain opener and a plunger I got it to drain. Now to the carpet, what a mess! My first evil thought was perhaps I should just turn it back on and let it run all night. At least that way I'd have a big enough disaster to call someone to clean it up and then call my Insurance company about it. Believe me in the years I worked for the Restoration Contractor I know there are people who intentionally did that about every five years because they would get new furniture, new carpet and a paint job out of it. Oh yea, I've seen water damages that cost insurance companies upwards of 50K to repair. I'm just not that kind of person and I would never be able to live with myself if I tried something like that. Besides the anti-lie beacon on my forehead would start flashing "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" anyway.

So back to the carpet. The first step obviously was vacing up enought of the water so it wouldn't keep moving further in to the house. After about an hour of that process it was time to start pulling back carpet. Of course it was soaked so it was very heavy and the pad underneath I knew was toast. By now it's about 10 PM. At that point I said to heck with it for the night, I'd finish cleaning it up in the morning. I slept restlessly, dreaming of drowning in a sea of wet carpeting.

Morning. Okay, first things first, COFFEE! After that the fun would really begin. Cutting the seams at doorways, pulling the carpet out of the house and propping it up somewhere to dry. Removing the wet padding to dispose of it and drying out the floor underneath. More COFFEE! By 11 AM the carpet was outside draped over chairs to dry, the padding was removed and disposed of and I had fans and portable heaters on the floor drying out the floor and the cabinet bases etc. and I'm thoroughly wired from too much coffee.

After the floor dried out, I went out to the garage where we just happened to have about a half roll of carpet padding to replace what had been destroyed. I spent the next hour or so dragging that in, cutting it to fit the floor and tacking it down. That is such fun, heavy awkward stuff! Why didn't I call the pros again? Oh yea, I wanted to save the money.

Well, it is now about 2:30 Pm, my back aches, I have little cuts all over my fingers from the tack strip around the sides of the room, I finally had some lunch and the carpet is still flapping in the wind drying out. Maybe I'll get it put back in by 10 PM tonight. What next, cleaning it of course, but that will have to wait for another day. I'm getting too old for this. Remind me next time to Call the Pros!

Have a great Holiday everyone.

Sandie P.