Flood

Since moving into our Bar Nunn house in 2009, we have had a near-constant issue on our mind.  Flooding!  With a sump pump going every 30 seconds, we were always worried about the power or the pump going out.  In August, just one month after moving in, the basement flooded for the first time.  We had a plumber replace the first pump to get the water out and then had him install another pump as a backup.  When number one got too full, it would drain into number two so we'd have enough time to fix number one.  Four months after finishing our basement with the best pad and carpet available, it floods for the second time.  We ripped out that beautiful pad and replaced it all!  I was SICK!!!  Then comes the kids leaving water on in the upstairs bathroom, that flowed from the heat register under the cabinet down through the ceiling to the carpet downstairs.  Not too bad, but had us once again drying carpet.  Then comes the time that the power went out in negative degree weather that has Randy driving 40 minutes to borrow a friends' generator.  We took a LONG extension cord from the sump pump, up through my wonderful laundry chute out the back door.  Talk about freezing the house out!  And last, but not least, when the pipe from the water heater was moved just a half- inch from the drain allowing all the water to flow directly onto the cement and under the pad.  Again, up came the carpet and out came the fans.  We were DONE with that house when we moved.  We LOVED it, but HATED it at the same time.  The land had the potential to be awesome, the house was our own, the water was the bane of our existence!  So, this past year has been wonderful!  Not once have we had to worry about the power going out.  Not once have we been nervous to go out of town in case the power did go out and we weren't there to catch it before it turned into another $4,000 mistake!  Until today!!

 Randy came down at 7:45 and immediately started screaming at the kids.  I made it down by 8:00 to find every single towel we owned in the hallway.  The sink in the powder room under the stairs had been plugged and the water left on.  For how long, no one knows.  No one was fessing up.  Tyson loves to play in the powder room and also loves playing in the sink, so we assumed it was him.  He was so adamant that it wasn't him, so we sent Shelby, Brennon, and Tyson to their rooms.  We took our carpet cleaner over the same spot for and hour and a half, pulling up SEVEN gallons of water.  The water soaking the towels not included!  Cameron's dad owns a carpet cleaning business, so he graciously brought over his industrial fans to help us dry out the pad.  Two hours later and it's still not dry.  We brought down the kids to show them the damage that was done by one person being careless.  Then comes the truth/apology.  It was Caden!  He was cleaning some stuff in the sink, left for some reason, and forgot all about it.  We were pretty hard on him for allowing us to punish his little brothers and sister for something that he had done.  Hours had passed since we started cleaning, words had been exchanged, and the kids had all been in their rooms for a long time.  I made sure to impress on him that it wasn't just his siblings that had been hurt by his actions, I had punished innocent children and now felt like dirt!  I'm proud to say that we never yelled at the kids (other than to tell them to hurry up with those towels) but that doesn't take the sting away from blaming them.  Tyson was crying, telling me it wasn't him, and I was just going on and on about turning off the sink and not playing in the bathroom.  So far the mess is still drying.  The carpet will need to be re stretched and the house will go back to normal, but for now, I'm still so anxious about flooding.  Why does this haunt me?  Because for years, this has been our worst nightmare.  And now it's followed us to Washington!  Not my favorite way to start 2014.  I hope this isn't an omen of things to come!!!  A teensy part of me wants to use this as an excuse to remodel- maybe add some wood floors- but alas, I'm too happy being debt-free to want that for reals:)