We had a VERY quiet Christmas here. It was the first one that we didn't see family, but we still had a great day with our church family & our boys. The next morning I woke up before seven. "Wow!", I thought. "Everybody slept through the night & I feel so rested. I think I'll get up & read my Bible." As soon as I stepped out of bed, I heard a noise I didn't recognize. I made it all the way down our hallway before I realized I was walking in water. "JASON!", I screamed (which he later told me made him literally fall out of bed). We quickly realized the water was coming from the boys' bathroom. Apparently in the night (i.e., the second after we feel asleep), a cheap valve broke off of the shut-off valve under the sink. Our apartment was flooded with at least 200 gallons of water (enough to fill up this fish tank: http://allmypetsupplies.com/popup.aspx?src=http://allmypetsupplies.s3.amazonaws.com/images/Product/large/200-Gallon-Deep-Super-System-with-HQI-lights.jpg ).
As I scrabbled around like an idiot, Jason managed to call the apartment emergency number & figure out how to shut off the water. I called and woke up our dear friends, Nicolle & Mike. Nicolle came and got the boys (who were very upset that they couldn't stay & splash in all the water). Mike came over and helped Jason start figuring it all out. I stayed for a couple of hours, but finally left when I couldn't take anymore.
Over half of our furniture & stuff had to be moved to an empty apartment to let the carpets dry. The rest of it was stacked & pushed to the edges. We spent the next 4 nights with Mike & Nicolle (and because of God's perfect planning, they had BOTH taken vacation this week, so they really could take care of us all week). We started moving back in yesterday morning with the help of some of the men from our church. As you can imagine, the apartment looks like a "hot mess." It really is liked we just moved in all over again. We are in the process of going through all the boxes & make sure stuff isn't still wet & try to get everything sorted and back where it belongs. I'm convinced it will take at LEAST two weeks to get things back to "normal."
Lows from the week:
- the apartment complex won't replace our carpet
- there's a nice, funky smell now. Yipee!
- not sure yet if they will pro-rate our rent for the days we weren't here & all the extra utilites
- see above mentioned "hot mess"
- we're not dead. Seriously. So, the boys' have a small space heater pointed into their bedroom. It was plugged in and running all night. When Jason unplugged it from the wall, it had sitting water in it. I try not to think about it too much, but I'm not sure who should have died first; me stepping into the water first, Jason unplugging the heater or the boys sleeping in their metal bunkbed. Did I mention we're not dead?!?
- we had relatively little damage to our stuff. We have renter's insurance, but there is that nasty $500 deductible. Most all our our "stuff" and the boys' toys are in plastic rubbermaids. Whew!
- we live in the bottom corner unit, so no other families were affected
- we're not dead
Yuck!! We had a small flood in our living room this summer and it was such a pain. I am surprised they are not replacing the carpet. I guess they are just replacing the pad underneath?? I am glad that ya'll weren't shocked either. That sounds like the definition of hot mess. Good luck to getting back to 'normal' quickly.
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