Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Bathtub Blues

Yesterday was a bad day. I had received a phone call from Caitlin's principle telling me that she had gone off campus after school had started, and was caught smoking ciggerettes with a group of her friends. Needless to say I was not impressed with her behavior and fumed over the information while thinking my kid is out of control, going down the wrong path, hanging out with the wrong people, etc...

On top of that I'm pms'ing, so everything is generally worse than it seems and the irritability factor is sky high. So any little thing that didn't go my way yesterday added to the fact that yesterday sucked. By mid afternoon I was completely stressed out and decided I needed to soak in the tub and try to calm down.

I started the bath water and then ran upstairs to answer the phone. It was Russell. I relayed what happned with Caitlin and ranted over my awful sucky day and was feeling quite sorry for myself. Poor guy got an ear full and he did his best to console me. After talking to Russell the phone rang again and I had another conversation. Then after that I got on the computer and piddled around on line for a while when it hit me. OH MY FREAKING GOD!! THE BATH WATER!!! I bolted downstairs at lightening speed scared of what I would find.

It was bad. I had forgotten about the tub for at least an hour. There was about an inch of standing water in some places and the water had spread out through the walls into the hallway, my bedroom, the hall bathroom and part of my hall closet. Not good.

So I spent all the rest of the afternoon and evening dealing with the flood. My friend Elliott came over after he got off work and helped me clean up. Caitlin must have been feeling pretty guilty about her school incident because she pitched in and helped too, which like most teens is pretty uncharacteristic on a voluntary basis. We borrowed a shop vac from one of Elliott's friends, but it didn't work out very well so I had to run to Walmart at 9pm to buy cheap towels and a big floor fan. I bought 16 towels and we saturated them all and of course every other towel in the house too. The fan would have to do the rest and it's still blowing as I type this. I left it on all night and my bedroom carpet is still soaked in places. The bathroom and closet carpet had to be ripped out. They are completely ruined.

So I woke up this morning to the same ol thing, still feeling crappy, and get to look forward to another stressful day as I continue to deal with water damage. We can't afford new flooring and so I'll be living with a concrete floor for a while. :(



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would pull up ALL of the carpet, since you know that it's been wet for longer than 24 hours. The pad is probably soaked through, as well could be the actual plywood (floor). In your climate, stachybotrus mold sets in FAST. If you can't dry it out completely within 12 hours, forget it. :(

Man. I wish I could come help you guys dry it out.

Ginny said...

Thanks :) We did pull out all the carpet in the bathroom, and my closet. But I left the carpet in the bedroom and the hallway because they were not damaged all the way. They are still damp in areas, but I'm spraying the underside with bleach every day, so I doubt mold will grow. Oh and I have a big fan positioned under the carpet too, so hopefully it will be dry today. I'm a little worried about the base of the walls though...back behind the trim. I sprayed bleach all around the baseboards. Other than that, I don't know what to do.

Anonymous said...

Shit. I'm so sorry. It doesn't help when your friends won't bring your stamps back. I'll be by soon, I promise. We're dealing with a lot of our own stuff :-/