Floods Aren't Fun

One evening this past winter, me and Lee-Anne were home and I smelled what seemed to me like wood burning. I asked Lee-Anne if she could smell it too and she said she could. We quickly surveyed the unit and couldn't find the source. We opened the door to the shared section of the house and found ourselves ankle-deep in water.

It didn't take long to find out that water was spouting from the back of the washing machine. We'd put a load of laundry in, and after shutting the machine off, the water flow quickly stopped. At this point in time, our neighbours were still gone.

We called our landlord even though it was kind of late. He answered, and it was the first time either of us had ever heard his voice. Our tour of the unit had been hosted by the previous tenant, and all the legal stuff after that had been done remotely.

Our landlord said he'd contact the maintenance person and that he'd be by the next day. Until then, he asked us to clean up the water. He didn't really need to ask us, we were kind of incentivized to not have our own home destroyed.

It was an uncomfortable task, though. Lot of stuff in the laundry room and I'm not quite sure how they all work. We spent awhile sopping up water with mops and towels, wringing it into buckets and bailing it all out. All the while, I was vaguely nervous that one of the devices was going to explode in my face from prolonged exposure to the water.

This isn't the first time I've dealt with a house flood. Long time readers might remember that one Christmas in Guelph, we had a mysterious flood that ran through our kitchen. We spent the holiday season sweeping the water into the drain in the laundry room over there and running wet vacs, taking shifts through the night to stop it from building up. We had various professionals come through, with no one finding the answer until it was discovered that a vacated house uphill from us had a pipe burst and the water was running underground into our place. The very same day that the flooding issue was fixed and I was heading back to Kitchener, my roommate called and said my unit in Kitchener was flooded.

Anyway, this time around, we managed to clean things up. Nothing exploded in my face, and while the night was tense (we never found out what was causing the burning smell, which is just uncomfortable), everyone survived and the maintenance man showed up the next day.

He said it was likely a blockage in the pipes and he'd have to snake it out. Apparently he'd run into this issue before, when they were working on the upstairs unit and later found the basement to be flooded. He said it was because the pipes were in the form of a "T" which he personally thought was poorly planned. He'd like to check upstairs but I tell him the neighbours have been gone for over two months.

So he spent awhile on the pipe with his snake. Later on, he called me over and said that whatever it was, it was in deep, and his 25 foot snake had failed to clear the blockage. He told me he's get in touch with a plumber.

The next day, we have a plumber over. He's got a 60 foot snake. He works for awhile and finds success. No more water coming out the back of the washing machine.

About a week later, late in the evening, me and Lee-Anne heard some commotion upstairs. It's our neighbours. They'd left half a month after we gained access to our unit, and only a few days after we made our big move. It had been about two and a half months since then. I was worried we'd been spoiled by not having to deal with noise from upstairs.

The next day, we left our unit and found ourselves ankle-deep in water.

So the way we got to reintroduce ourselves to our neighbours was by telling them the basement was flooded, asking them if they'd used the washing machine since coming back, and explaining the situation last week.

They said they hadn't used the washing machine. We start to clean things up, and while we clean, it starts flooding again. We remember what the maintenance guy said about the basement flooding when they worked on stuff upstairs. We ask the neighbours if they're using their kitchen sink. They are, and we have to ask them not to. Flooding issue stops.

We contact the landlord again. He contacts both the maintenance man and the plumber. Both of them come together next time. This time, they can access the upstairs. Somehow, they resolve the issue. They tell me that they've written up an estimate to get some of the pipes reworked out of that "T" formation both of them are so unfond of. My landlord approves it. One more visit from the plumber later, and it hasn't been an issue since.

Floods aren't fun.

I know I haven't updated much this month, but I've made three entries on my Gryphood blog this month, so technically, I'm ahead of schedule. My last entry over there was that curry recipe that my mom got from a video game, which I mentioned on this blog a little while back. 25 ingredients! Probably the most intricate thing I've ever cooked. Here's a link: LeBlanc Curry (gryphood.blogspot.com)