The story of the basement that is dead to me

Gather round, friends - I shall tell you a tale.

A decade ago, (yes, I was twelve when we bought this house)  we purchased our current home with dreams of finishing the basement a year later.

We planned, plotted, figured, dreamed, and finally had it "done."

I remember two little girls running and jumping on fresh carpeting.  I remember that new carpet smell!  I remember playgroups and movie nights and days spent in the coolness of those four walls when it was too hot to be outside in July.

About six years ago, we had a sewer back-up problem.  I'll spare you the gory details, but let's just say it was dubbed "The poo-poo flood" by our young ones and they were about right on with that description.

We called the insurance company, who called the restoration company, who sent young men and women out who had that nonsense taken care of in under half a day.

They cleaned, sanitized, dehumidified, restored and finally we had it "redone."

Thursday, April 18th dawned rainy and rainy.  The Midwest was hit by torrential rains and many, many homes flooded.

As I stood in our basement that morning at 7 o'clock just before jumping on the treadmill, I noticed a small amount of water on our tiled area.  I quickly looked into the bathroom and the storage area and noticed water seeping in from the under the walls.  Being the quick thinker I am, I panicked and called my husband who had just arrived at work, a good 20 minutes away. 

I could see the water starting to pool and rise.  I happened to be in my bare feet since I had not yet put on my running shoes.  Let me tell you something that never really occurred to me - rain water on the feet is COLD!  I mean, icy feeling cold!

I started throwing towels and blankets on the floor, thinking this would help.  After this started going nowhere, I jumped onto the carpeted area and willed the water to not crawl any further.

That didn't help either. 

My husband arrived home, and with some neighbor's help, was able to get the sump pump switch going (it had failed to trigger, thus causing the issue at hand - or rather, at foot - ha ha!)  My dad came over and helped Jerry shop-vac the remaining standing water.  All in all, we are so blessed - I was right there when it started so we know where and when it began and how much damage ensued.  Had it happened an hour later, we all would have been out of the house for hours and WHO KNOWS how much water would have gotten in and how vast the problem could have been.

So, my husband called our insurance company, who, of course, was inundated with calls and couldn't get anyone out to our house until the following week.  Same for the restoration companies.  At this point, both agencies were telling people to just do what needed to be done and we would settle everything up later.

Saturday morning found Jerry pulling up carpet and padding - he said in some areas (ironically enough, the ones furthest away from the original sighting of water) it was as if the padding were a soaked washcloth that could have been wrung out.

In the midst of all the good times going on, we found out that one of our foundation walls had a leak that needs to be fixed, which can't happen until later in June, which means wall repair before anything else can go forward.

So, once again, carpet gone, basement cleaned, dried, and sanitized.

And Mindy is "done."

Because you know what isn't as much fun the third time?

Finishing a basement.  I seriously asked Jerry if we could just go back to cement floors and no baseboards and heck, let's just pull down the drywall while we're at it.  And we can go back to a simpler time where the kids played in cardboard boxes amongst the cobwebs and dead pill bugs. 

Come on, family, who's with me?!??!!?

Not a one.  Traitors, every last one of them.

So, every time I walk down to the basement, I scowl and shudder and mentally shut down a little.

 And halfway consider collapsing onto that dusty blue chair while hiding under the equally filthy curtains.