The Big Flood of 2013

One recent Sunday, I thought the drama of the day was when we were sitting in Primary (children's church basically), practicing for our upcoming Primary Program, with both senior primary and junior primary stuffed into one tiny room, and suddenly I realized one of the teachers, while we were singing, had gotten out a vacuum and was now moving chairs and vacuuming under the front row. It was really odd because one minute things were normal and the next this commotion was going on and yet nothing was being said about it. At least for a minute. Then we found out there was a trail of ants going under all the chairs, including mine! Next I knew, half the room was getting up, moving chairs, still vacuuming, and people were still singing! It was all rather comical! At least none of the kids were freaking out.

As I said, I THOUGHT that was the drama of the day, until I took a nice nap. I was later awakened by first Ashley telling me she left the water running in the sink and the bathroom was wet. Okay, great. Isn't this like the 5th time this happened with my kids? Another wet mess to clean up. I'm groggy. I'm slowly moving to get up. Mackenzie comes in. She also tells me there's water everywhere and to come upstairs. Okay, I'm up and heading that way. At the bottom of the stairs someone is now really yelling and I decide maybe I should run. I could not believe what I saw when I got to the top and into the bathroom.

This particular bathroom is huge. It is one sink area (attached to the little girls' bedroom), through a huge bath area, then to another sink area that is attached to our guest room. Well, the entire tiled area is holding about 1.5 inches of water! And it's all going into our guest bedroom and just soaking across the carpet. We grab the nearest towels and they are instantly soaked and we pitch them into the tub. Next I know I am sending 4 kids to every area of the house for towels (which ultimately was not enough). It's endless. In the meantime, Mike checks downstairs and goes into the garage, which is under our guest room, and it looks like it is raining in there across certain parts of the ceiling. CRAP!

Back to the bathroom he goes. We spent about a straight hour just soaking up water out of the bathroom, cabinets, drawers and even more time trying to soak up water out of the carpet in the guest room. Maybe two more hours before the day was over just standing on towels so it would soak down into the pad.

We left after a while and went out to eat for my sister-in-law's birthday. I had told the kids, especially Ashley, that they were not to smile or laugh when talking about the incident. But on the way to the restaurant Ashley hollered out, "I can't wait to tell NaNaw all about the BIG FLOOD!" Oh boy. What is it about kids and the excitement of drama? So Mike and I, when our backs were turned, joked about the big flood of 2013. We both just had to laugh about it all. What else are you going to do? But we couldn't let THEM know.

You know, Ashley has destroyed a LOT of things in our house. Peeled wallpaper, recently took a rock and rubbed off paint and created marks on all the corners of our walls and cabinets (most are faux painted or glazed so no easy fix), recently cut her pillowcase and her curtains, peeled a little more wallpaper in her room, cut her hair, and now this. But of all the things she's done, while this was the worst, she got in the least trouble because it was unintentional. How can a child comprehend the true damage, both physically or financially? She keeps saying it's not really her fault because she didn't mean to leave the water running. I keep telling her she doesn't understand then what it means for something to be her fault. I know she doesn't want me to tell other people because all this embarrasses her. And here I am blogging about it. I think she is so young (only 5) that she will look back one day and realize it's kind of a funny story to tell. I mean, she didn't even get punished! And by no means is she the only one who's a bit destructive. My GIRLS have destroyed LOTS of stuff, most of the time intentionally!

Here are photos of the sheet rock in the garage after we got it to quit leaking. I actually think more water eventually came through than what I even have pictured, but as you can see it kind of spread both directions and then down the walls, and there was a lot over this hanging storage area on the right.

So what did we do about it? Everyone wants to know if insurance covers something like this. The answer is yes, but you have to meet your deductible first. Well, our deductible is high so the cost of repair is less than the deductible. Poo. But the insurance company did give us some names of where to start the process. We ended up with a water mitigation company (clean up crew that does water and fire damage). After days of blasting heavy duty fans all over every where and pulling up the carpet (removing pad in part of guest room and in girls' closet), it was determined that they would have to tear out the sheet rock and pull out the insulation. Joy.

The good news is that after they did that it dried really fast and we were declared good to go! No worries of mold or anything else. Time to call our friendly contractor. We now have new insulation, new sheetrock, and a newly painted garage. And he's going to paint our 1/2 bath that has had torn wallpaper everywhere for the last 2 years.

My advice to all parents - have some money saved up because it's inevitable that someday at least one of your kids is going to cost you a lot of money! You're going to need it. 

And I always said that Sunday naps usually come with a cost (usually it is a lot of mess once you are up), but this one was over the top! Still, after two sets of twins, Sunday naps are a gem and a luxury that at one point in time I never thought I'd have. I've been getting them for a few years now. If you average the cost out it may be worth it for a nap once a week!