On the Friday night before Girl Scout day camp Hubby got a phone call from our renters saying the water heater in our old house failed and had flooded the basement. He had to leave Dads' poker night early and go try to help clean up the mess. By Monday (the day he left for Boy Scout camp) I had to take over the clean up process & be there for the new water heater install. The carpet had mildew and I hired professionals to come take out what needed replaced: dry wall, base boards, part of the double doors and all the carpet & padding. At least the renter was nice to me and set my children (everyone except M, who was at GS day camp) up in front of Cars 3 on Netflix for me while I talked to him and the trades.
On Tuesday we went to GS camp (everyone except K, who begged to spend time with Gma instead) and my mom watched the children while I went and picked out new carpet and padding at Carpet Masters & got on their schedule to install (which ended up being that Saturday). Luckily in there our friend was able to also repair the damages and fix the paint that had just been done last fall. About half an hour after my mother went home I was doing laundry when my children started yelling that there was "water coming out of the light!" Confused, I went running downstairs with them and water was pouring out of one of the canister lights in the kitchen. I instructed the children to grab the 5 gallon bucket out of the garage while I shut off the water and it was raining in the garage too! The culprit was the Jack & Jill bathroom upstairs. One of the children had used it when we got home from GS camp and the valve had gotten stuck in the open position so the toilet was trying to fill bowl with water that had been filling for hours. After what had happened at the rental and seeing the water had already gone into both D and M's room and having my husband off camping, I immediately called a plumber & a water mitigation company for help with damage control! Long story short, since there was a poo in the toilet that whole time the water was spilling out, plenty of dry wall, trim, tile and carpet had to be ripped out. Hubby came home early from camping because between the two houses needing repairs this was "ridiculous" (his word he used when he texted to say his was coming).
Fans and dehumidifiers and air scrubbers galore! My kitchen, my garage, 2 bedrooms and the bathroom were all damaged and had to be aired out for days. It was so loud M escaped to my parents' house for a few days (and we learned N sleeps better if there are fans roaring in the next room over so Hubby installed a ceiling fan in her room when the professional fans were gone). Turns out D, who was now sharing a room with N (while M chose to sleep on our floor) hates ceiling fans and couldn't sleep with one on and ended up trying to crawl into our bed every night. I'm sorry buddy but you are way too big and squirm too much to get away with that! During all this N's room, the play room and our master bedroom were a mess, our kitchen was a mess, and we couldn't park the cars in the garage but I kept reminding myself that these were all 1st world problems.
I also have to add that in the middle of everything being repaired, 5/6 of us got lice. This was D's very 1st time and he has short hair so it was easy to get rid of but it took us a full 5 days to get rid of K's lice since she had it the worst. It was not fun and brings a chaos all it's own on top of what we were dealing with and the repairs being done. I suddenly wanted to add "install another dryer" on the repair list! I hate lice!
On Tuesday we went to GS camp (everyone except K, who begged to spend time with Gma instead) and my mom watched the children while I went and picked out new carpet and padding at Carpet Masters & got on their schedule to install (which ended up being that Saturday). Luckily in there our friend was able to also repair the damages and fix the paint that had just been done last fall. About half an hour after my mother went home I was doing laundry when my children started yelling that there was "water coming out of the light!" Confused, I went running downstairs with them and water was pouring out of one of the canister lights in the kitchen. I instructed the children to grab the 5 gallon bucket out of the garage while I shut off the water and it was raining in the garage too! The culprit was the Jack & Jill bathroom upstairs. One of the children had used it when we got home from GS camp and the valve had gotten stuck in the open position so the toilet was trying to fill bowl with water that had been filling for hours. After what had happened at the rental and seeing the water had already gone into both D and M's room and having my husband off camping, I immediately called a plumber & a water mitigation company for help with damage control! Long story short, since there was a poo in the toilet that whole time the water was spilling out, plenty of dry wall, trim, tile and carpet had to be ripped out. Hubby came home early from camping because between the two houses needing repairs this was "ridiculous" (his word he used when he texted to say his was coming).
Fans and dehumidifiers and air scrubbers galore! My kitchen, my garage, 2 bedrooms and the bathroom were all damaged and had to be aired out for days. It was so loud M escaped to my parents' house for a few days (and we learned N sleeps better if there are fans roaring in the next room over so Hubby installed a ceiling fan in her room when the professional fans were gone). Turns out D, who was now sharing a room with N (while M chose to sleep on our floor) hates ceiling fans and couldn't sleep with one on and ended up trying to crawl into our bed every night. I'm sorry buddy but you are way too big and squirm too much to get away with that! During all this N's room, the play room and our master bedroom were a mess, our kitchen was a mess, and we couldn't park the cars in the garage but I kept reminding myself that these were all 1st world problems.
Thank goodness our friend, Daniel Chirinos, was able to do a terrific job repairing the dry wall, trim and paint. I highly recommend him for any work anyone needs done in your home! Eventually we were able to get the tile and carpet installed and the home owners insurance check came through for just enough to cover all the people we promised to pay for repairs. The silver lining in all this? D and M's rooms are amazing. We made sure that not a single item they didn't want or need went back into their room. We even sorted through underwear, people. We were serious. We got rid of so much stuff both to donate and to simple put in the trash! Minimalism kid style is the best. We are now motivated to clean out our entire home after all this and the weeds are totally out of control but we'll try to do and catch up on all that eventually. (M is also very pleased have the green instead of the bright pink so it's more obvious she has a panda room and they are both happy to have a blue bathroom instead of the original builders' beige.) All said and done this toilet disrupted 5 weeks of our lives but it could have been a lot worse.
I also have to add that in the middle of everything being repaired, 5/6 of us got lice. This was D's very 1st time and he has short hair so it was easy to get rid of but it took us a full 5 days to get rid of K's lice since she had it the worst. It was not fun and brings a chaos all it's own on top of what we were dealing with and the repairs being done. I suddenly wanted to add "install another dryer" on the repair list! I hate lice!
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