7/20 - Bailing on a Day with a capital D

The image above is one of two such buckets of dirty storm water I pulled from my basement carpet today. Last night's storm appears to have simply opened up and dumped a foot or more of rain in very short order. I haven't had a real basement flooding since they completed the waterproofing 2 years ago, and even then it was never this bad. I woke to completely soaked basement carpets, all the way across the floor. Superman found soaked carpets in his car. He headed to the dealership to find out where the leak was, and I headed to Home Depot for a Shop Vac.

It turned out Superman's leak was no leak at all. The sewers must have backed up, because we had a full on flood which rose up above the underside of his car. Meanwhile, while my car mats were dry, my car sloshed as I took corners on the way to Home Depot. By the time I got there my mats were soaked and my feet squished in them. My car was parked on only slightly higher ground than Superman's, and was also flooded.

Superman and I were not the only people affected by the storm. There was a run on Shop Vacs in Euclid, and Mentor, and Richmond Heights. I quickly stopped driving around and started calling. No one had any shop vacs left, but Costco had Air Movers, which are essentially fans with a scoop to point the air flow across the floor. At this point Superman's dealership had determined the problem and started vacuuming the water out of his car. I called my dealership to find out if they could do the same for me. Instead my dealership sent me to a detailing company who could take my car today.

The detailing company vacuumed out my car, but they are concerned the padding under the carpet is still soaked. They plan to pull the carpet and padding and see if they can dry them. If they can't dry the padding or it starts to smell, they will replace the padding.

While at the detailing place I called my insurance company, to see if they would cover the cost of drying the car out. Turns out I never switched my policy from the 2010 Sentra to the 2013 one when I leased the new car. The insurance company won't honor the claim because this car is not insured, and I paid 6 months of insurance on a car I no longer have. I could have sworn this was all taken care of at the dealership when I signed the lease, but apparently not. The person at the insurance company suggested I send them the lease paperwork and ask for a refund for that amount. If they are willing to refund that money, it should cover the cost of this particular repair. I'm just hoping having them refund the money doesn't then leave my record as having no insurance for that timeframe. I learned THAT lesson when I first started leasing. Rates go up astronomically if you've gone any length of time without insurance.

Because I can't work from home when I'm in training (I'm not actually working yet, to do anything from home), and because I can't miss the classes scheduled for the first few days this week, I thought I'd have to get a rental car. Instead, the detail place offered me a loaner car - a 2000 Acura with ~122,000 miles on it. I keep waiting for this thing to fall to pieces if I close the door hard! Superman assures me it won't kill me though, so that's what I'm driving for the next several days. I do like the sun roof...

I stopped by Costco and picked up the air mover, plus a small shop vac they actually had in stock even though the woman on the phone told me they didn't, and headed home to deal with the basement carpet. The shop vac has to go back. It doesn't seal correctly, and water came out around the lid every time I turned it on to started vacuuming. Luckily I have a steam cleaner which worked well enough. It has a small tank, which is why I wanted the shop vac, but it probably worked better at sucking water anyway since that's what it's specifically designed to do. That and I applied pressure on the front end to facilitate the suction.

3 hours and ~10 gallons of water later, the carpet is no longer soaked. It's still wet, so I have a dehumidifier, 2 fans, and a space heater running on high, trying to dry the place out. My back is sore from leaning over the steam cleaner to apply pressure. My arms are sore from applying said pressure. I called this my workout today, and even wore the heart rate monitor to track it. It wasn't the best workout I've ever done, as my heart rate didn't get very high, but I certain fatigued some upper body muscles.

And that was my day. I'm now too tired to learn anything, and I'm heading to bed. I'll have to do all my Saturday stuff tomorrow, like grocery shopping and cooking. I also have a long run to get in, providing my back allows.

Hopefully the basement carpet will completely dry quickly, and hopefully I'll be able to get the place hot enough to kill any bacteria that would grow into mold or stink the place up. This being the worst I've ever flooded, I'm concerned about the water in the wooden framework and paneling.

<fingers crossed>