Thursday, 29 June 2006 10:37 pm
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deckardcanineMy situation has not been nearly as bad as some in the DC area, so I like to think of this as a report rather than a gripe.
Both my house and my folks' house got a basement flood the other day. It comes from the houses being both old and at the bottom of a hill. I didn't see the damage at my folks' house, but I'm sure it was less. For one thing, my house didn't have a sump pump to break in the first place. More importantly, my roommates don't have the experience of my folks. They didn't arrange the basement with flooding in mind; they cluttered it like a garage. As a result, we had a lot of moving to do.
I feel sorry for my landlady. She took yesterday off from work to deal with the flood, and she was still moving things when I got home. Very tired, natch. I started helping as soon as I changed out of my work clothes. My Tuesday task had been to take her paintings, handed off from the top of the basement stairs, and put them in safe places in the living room. Wednesday was a bit harder: I took items, mostly in boxes, up two flights to the attic. The attic and basement were both hot enough that I doffed my shirt, reactions be darned. The narrow attic stairs prevented me from holding the boxes widthwise, and I learned the hard way to look out for an uncarpeted strip on the top step with upturned nails. I bumped my head and shoulders and maybe something else along the way. Between that and my cognizantly incorrect lifting posture, I expected to ache a bit today; oddly, I didn't. Nor did my energy, which seemed to please the others, feel particularly low today. Perhaps it helped that I took a few items to my room.
There are a few silver linings here: (1) I got a better look at the attic; (2) I got a look at some nice paintings; and (3) the basement, now drier thanks to a vac and drain, no longer requires me to take a very indirect route to the laundry around the clutter.
As it happens, we had ordered a new fridge, which will require us to move food out of the old one to a basement backup. I hope the flood problem will be gone by that time. It also happens that I was going to take tomorrow off from work but then moved the date to Monday. If there is a continuation, I hope it coincides with my long weekend.
Really, let's pray that that's the last torrent we have in a while. Today's fleeting shower scared me enough.
Both my house and my folks' house got a basement flood the other day. It comes from the houses being both old and at the bottom of a hill. I didn't see the damage at my folks' house, but I'm sure it was less. For one thing, my house didn't have a sump pump to break in the first place. More importantly, my roommates don't have the experience of my folks. They didn't arrange the basement with flooding in mind; they cluttered it like a garage. As a result, we had a lot of moving to do.
I feel sorry for my landlady. She took yesterday off from work to deal with the flood, and she was still moving things when I got home. Very tired, natch. I started helping as soon as I changed out of my work clothes. My Tuesday task had been to take her paintings, handed off from the top of the basement stairs, and put them in safe places in the living room. Wednesday was a bit harder: I took items, mostly in boxes, up two flights to the attic. The attic and basement were both hot enough that I doffed my shirt, reactions be darned. The narrow attic stairs prevented me from holding the boxes widthwise, and I learned the hard way to look out for an uncarpeted strip on the top step with upturned nails. I bumped my head and shoulders and maybe something else along the way. Between that and my cognizantly incorrect lifting posture, I expected to ache a bit today; oddly, I didn't. Nor did my energy, which seemed to please the others, feel particularly low today. Perhaps it helped that I took a few items to my room.
There are a few silver linings here: (1) I got a better look at the attic; (2) I got a look at some nice paintings; and (3) the basement, now drier thanks to a vac and drain, no longer requires me to take a very indirect route to the laundry around the clutter.
As it happens, we had ordered a new fridge, which will require us to move food out of the old one to a basement backup. I hope the flood problem will be gone by that time. It also happens that I was going to take tomorrow off from work but then moved the date to Monday. If there is a continuation, I hope it coincides with my long weekend.
Really, let's pray that that's the last torrent we have in a while. Today's fleeting shower scared me enough.