Patrick's upstairs...it's his day off...I could go wake him up...but that wouldn't be very nice. He has been working his butt off and needs his sleep. And let's be honest, I can plunge a toilet.
Boy, was I wrong! This was not your ordinary plunge/plug. This was much bigger than I understood. Luckily, Patrick wandered downstairs in the middle of my clean up, plunging, frantic race to stop the toilet overflowing. We both went at it - frustrated, but undaunted. We can handle anything!
Once again...WRONG! The water started running under the wall and into our hallway...bubbling up our flooring - yuck! The smell was less than pleasant. Our "save the day" shop vac was no match for this flood.
The thing is - this was a main water line blockage...so once we cleaned it up (we thought), we went to wash our hands in the kitchen sink and it all overflowed again. This was tied to EVERYTHING! No washing machine, no potty flushing, no hand washing...nothing!
We called Baker Bros and Justin (our plumber super hero) was fabulous. He brought out the big guns and cleared it right out...but the damage was done. We had what they refer to as a Cat 5 sewer back up...ugh!
The plumber led to the Dry Force call - Jason - my new favorite worker man on the planet came to inspect, inform and start the drying out process. I think we assumed it would be like when our water heater burst last year, but NO, this was sewage...MUCH bigger deal. WAY more work. SIGNIFICANTLY more tools!
The scene in the bathroom during and the hallway as they are cutting out the bottom 12" of our drywall.
Jason and Patrick - 2 best guys to have around during a crisis!
Notice the absence of walls on the bottom of the bathrom? Yikes!
And the absence of flooring (again) in my entryway. You can't see them all, but we also had 3 fans, the huge dehumidifier and something else that has a name I can't remember, did something to enhance air quality and was LOUD!
As soon as we thought the blockage was fixed...welcome back Justin and friend! Goodbye holly bush!
Another snaking...and a funny message from Justin on the back patio
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The flooding was a hassle, having the house all torn up was a giant pain, not having a door that closed on the bathroom was really inconvenient, but dealing with the All State adjusters drove me to drink!
It took over a month to finally get a settlement on payment and work to be performed with our insurance company. Thank goodness they found time to send us a letter threatening to NOT renew our policy if we dared have another claim...I'm sure that's why they didn't have time to pay us to get this damage repaired. Or maybe it was to make us take the paltry settlement they originally offered.
I must admit, if we were in a better financial situation, I would have just paid the difference to be done with it...but we weren't, so I dug my heels in and we fought. I won.
Finally on October 17 - a full 5 weeks after the original flood, Juan and his team showed up to start fixing the damage. I can't tell you how amazed I am that they can cut out a foot of wall and replace it and make it look like it was never cut up. Our walls are textured, the house is 18 years old, there is a lot of natural light and you know me...I'm LOOKING...and I can't tell where the repairs start. Well done!
Check out the after!
I won't go so far as to say it was worth it for our new updated bathroom, but this is SO much better than what we started with!
All in all, it took 40 days from flood to finish. I was so worried about mom during this time, but as long as she wasn't looking right at it - she forgot there even was a flood. The kids are super resilient - they just worked around it. Patrick works all the time and is much easier-going than I am, so he handled it all beautifully. The clutter and dust nearly got the best of me on a couple of days, but I did surprisingly well...maybe because there is too much else to worry about or maybe I am mellowing with age...or maybe because I am finally learning that my worry will not make others move faster!
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