I was awoken at 3:45 this morning by a noise. My first thought upon waking up was, "What is Avril doing out there?" When I realized that Avril was in bed beside me, I listened more closely to the noise. It sounded like running water. I figured the toilet in the main bathroom was running, which it has been known to do. But why would Avril have used that bathroom instead of the master bathroom? I sat up and listened closer still. It was definitely water. Feeling a little dread gnawing at my belly, I got out of bed and walked down the hall. It wasn't the bathroom. It didn't sound right to be the kitchen sink. I left the lights off to avoid waking the boys. When I reached the end of the hall, my feet squished on wet carpet.
Crap.
I closed Alex's door and stepped into the laundry/entryway. My feet were in an alarming amount of water. It was over a centimeter deep. I turned the light on and immediately saw the problem. The hose connected to the cold water tap on the washing machine had burst, and a jet of water was shooting up and hitting the shelf above it. I turned the tap off, and went into the kitchen to see how far the water had spread. The water spread all the way into the dining room. Avril arrived behind me to see what was going on, and she was closely followed by Kenny. We spent the next few hours cleaning up by soaking towels in the water and wringing them into a mop bucket, and then emptying the mop bucket into the bathtub. Kenny thought it was a great adventure, so at least one of us enjoyed it.
Kenny didn't go back to sleep until noon. Alex woke up at 6:00. After the mess was cleaned up, we slept in shifts.
The ceiling in the empty suite below us is ruined and has to be torn out. We don't know the full extent of the damage to our floor yet. Our landlord is bringing his insurance company to have a look at it. Avril had just cleaned the house a couple days before, so none of our stuff was permanently damaged. A couple of books got wet, but other than that, we came out of it nothing worse than tired.
7 comments:
No one knows the hassles of flooding more than I. Except maybe for those Katrina victims. And I guess maybe the Tsunami survivors in Thailand.
OK, maybe I don't have it so bad.
oh, burn, that sucks. what a way to wake up.
So I take it the washer and the bad hose weren't yours?
No, if it had been my hose it would have been better behaved.
yeah! new floors! If only we were all so lucky!
That really sucks Mike. Luckily your landlord will take care of it. Please have your camera handy in the future and get in the habit of recording life's little disasters - and fun times - for us to see.
Everybody has to have a few experiences like this. You can buy upgraded hoses for washers that won't fail. It's worth the extra money. We got them for the place in Surprise so we won't have any surprises. Dad.
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