Not again!

[Slide Panda]

Water water water in my basement!

Some of you might recall a couple years back that the reservoir on a toilet in my place cracked while I was at work a couple years back and flooded my basement and f'ed up my ground floor - all this just after I'd blown my ACL.

This time - a make the beast with two backsing lazy gutter contractor is at fault.

Was moving some stuff around in the basement (finished) last night to spiffy it up before I put the house on the market. Oh yeah... I was going to be doing that next week. Now, not so much. While moving stuff, the carpet went squish... Great.. just great.

The wet corner  is closest to the downspout on the back side of my house. A quick trip outside showed me that no water was coming out of the black flex hose that *is attached* to the downspout under my deck.

Ok, so where's it going then. That's right... right out by my foundation.

Since the connection point for the metal downspout and hose is under my deck - a deck without much space under it - some lazy SOB just left the hose sitting there and never connected it.

So to head off as much water damage as possible, lucky me got to belly crawl through the mud and decking nails, during a pouring lightening storm to get the hose in place. It's not permanently affixed with screws like it should be, and all the neighbors are, but it's there.

Lucky for me - this ones cost is on the condo association as it's an external thing. Rules here state that any external issues are the domain of the association and they have been responsive so far. They can sue the gutter scum.

So now I'm waiting for a ServPro team to come and tear holes in my wall. So much for going to market next week.

[Autohag]

Suck!

If it makes you feel any better I've got water seeping up through the middle of my foundation floor and into the basement. Walls are bone dry for once. Fortunately the floor is tiled and sloped towards a floor drain.

[scratches head]

Now where does that drain lead to?..

[Meerkat]

That definitely sucks! I had a pipe freeze and flood the bottom level of my townhouse a few years ago. Those ServePro guys are pretty good. They came before the insurance adjuster did and hooked us up to get new carpet instead of just drying/treating the old.

[Slide Panda]

Still waiting... Since it's through the condo association I'm limited in my ability to nudge.

And I bet the ServPro resources are a bit maxed right now.

[The Mad King Pepe']

Power outages, flooding, and falling trees... kinda makes me feel better about living in a condo.  

Sorry for all you guys who are having issues. Brian, Ian, Steve, Ted & anyone else: give a shout if you need a hand!

[zooom]

Sorry for all you guys who are having issues. Brian, Ian, Steve, Ted & anyone else: give a shout if you need a hand!

does this mean you'll show up with a lawn chair, a bull horn, and a case of beer to be the proverbial supervisor....

[Meerkat]

does this mean you'll show up with a lawn chair, a bull horn, and a case of beer to be the proverbial supervisor....

[bikepilot]

Bummer, sadly I'm right there with you.

So last night I get home from work and find the basement all wet.  Spend a couple of hours hauling crap upstairs so it can dry out.  Still have a ton of stuff to move.  The whole area was (My downstairs, actually (not really a basement - split foyer house) flooded, not super deep, ranged from damp to ~.5".  Sucked up the standing water with a shop-vac and pointed some fans at the rest. Hoping the rate of evaporation outpaces the rate of water coming in.

Then I went to my bedroom upstairs to change into dry close and notice a ~2' diameter brown/wet spot on the ceiling above the bed... not good, re-arrange the bedroom so the bed isn't under it.

By now I'm hungry.  Oh, did I mention the power has been out and all this was done with one of those mini-led lights that are $99 cents at harbor freight...

So all I think of for food is jerky, there's some in the pantry.  Go to pull it out and whaddy know, the pantry is all wet.  Yep, another roof leak and this one leaking into the kitchen pantry of all places.

so then move all the food out of the pantry.

Finally ate my jerky and went to bed.

Fortunately I'm renting so someone else will  have to fix it, but its still going to be an enormous amount of work hauling everything out of the lower level so it can dry etc -- I figure furniture, etc all should probably go to prevent mold and nasties from growing - thoughts?

[Slide Panda]

Oh man... I've got nothing on that one.

Contact the land lord and get in line with a Firm like ServPro.

They will bring in lots of fans and heavy duty dehumidifiers. They key to preventing mold is getting thigns dry as fast as possible.
They (ServPro) may pull up carpets, cut holes in walls, ceilings etc to allow air to get back behind the sheet rock.. it's quite invasive. But hoping that a fan or two with no way to desiccate the air will probably get you all sorts of crud growing.

With the top and bottom leaks you've got - there's going to be a lot of work going on in that house. Man... I feel your pain

[bikepilot]

Thanks for the info.  The landlord is coming out tonight to give it a look over.  I'll suggest ServPro, appreciate the tip!

My previous house (still own it actually) is all above-ground and has a great roof -- I've never dealt with water inside a house before.  I don't think I'm a fan of the situation.

[The Mad King Pepe']

does this mean you'll show up with a lawn chair, a bull horn, and a case of beer to be the proverbial supervisor....

meh, just like being at work! 

[Slide Panda]

Thanks for the info.  The landlord is coming out tonight to give it a look over.  I'll suggest ServPro, appreciate the tip!

My previous house (still own it actually) is all above-ground and has a great roof -- I've never dealt with water inside a house before.  I don't think I'm a fan of the situation.

Yeah, it sucks.

Document stuff - photos nd take notes. Probably don't need to tell you this - but never hurts. When my place flooded (the toilet) my insurance covered everything - including damaged tools, books etc. For you, it might be under renters insurance.

And don't let the landlord slip out on a firm like ServPro or similar. Sounds like there's a lot of water in there and fixing that needs to be done. I'd expect that the roof leaks have been there a while and there might be mold and nasty up in the attic already.

[Artful]

Sounds like I'm one of the lucky ones then... A small rook leak in one spot and a little bit of water flowing through the unfinished basement is at least bearable.

I'm knocking out the kitchen roof drywall tonight to see what the extent of the problem is above, and the basement is well.. the basement. My sump pump could suck start a bulldozer. I have a dehumidifier going down there now which is doing an ok job, and once the trickle stops coming in the wall I'll take the leafblower to that and dry it up. The roof is the one I'm nervous about. If it's a patch job I'm in the clear, but if I have to come up with $5k to reroof the place I am going to be in a bad way.

[bikepilot]

Thanks SP, I'm on it.  The water was wide-spread downstairs, but fortunately not a huge volume of water.  When I left this morning there was no standing water anywhere and probably 1/2 of the area was dry.  The rest was still damp.  I do think having servpro come out would be perfect to dry it up quickly.  I sent the landlord an e-mail suggesting this. We'll talk this evening and take it from there.

I think you are right about the potential for mold in the attic.  I don't know how long it may have been seeping in slowly enough that it dried before it soaked through the ceiling.

[Slide Panda]

For the newer folks who might not know - rgramjet is in the trades. If it comes to heavy work you should drop him a line.