ICKY, YUCKY, STINKY!

Before we left for Texas I had noticed a peculiar smell down in the basement and attributed it to the toilet that is down there that was don't use often. So I cleaned it and we left.

Well, guess what... I was wrong.

When we returned the smell was worse (not too bad yet since the basement door was shut), but the hour was late and so we let it go.

Next day was Sunday, and we went downstairs to try and figure it out, but left it until after church because we just couldn't see anything. Mark was still in meetings (we have late church) and so I went down alone to try and find where the smell was. It wasn't the bathroom, it wasn't the living room, it wasn't the bedrooms.... what was it? Just as I thought that I might have a dead animal in the walls of my home I opened the door to the little closet/room with the heater/ac and water heater. The floor drain that was in that room had bubbled over with nothing but icky, yucky, stinky raw sewage!!! It was after 6 on a Sunday, so the only way to get a plumber out at that time would be to pay like an extra $200 bucks, and honestly, it wasn't more than a teeny, tiny bit. So we left it until the next morning. Mark took a shower (bad idea), and I immediately called the plumber. He was there by 8 had to take off our toilet and rooter all the way to the street. Still, I didn't know the problem was as bad as it was. Then by 9 the clean up guys where there and they tested showed me how far it had gotten in the carpet. Luckily we caught it early and it hadn't soaked up in the walls yet. So they spent the day in my basement, pulling out all the furniture, ripping out the carpet and 3 of the four rooms downstairs, scrubbing everything down, and setting up the little "sanitation area". They blocked off the whole part of the house that had sewage stuff in it and now there are all sort of fans and de-humidifiers (yes, those exist), down there. The insurance claim is in, and I guess we'll be getting new carpet in the basement. Not really what I wanted to spend my money on, but oh, well.

Oh, also that day, the heater broke so that guy had to come out and fix that too. All in all it was a very expensive day. Yikes!