swestrup | Shit Happens

Linda and I were just getting ready to go out for a walk and to do a minor bit of shopping, when she noticed water in our basement. Our first guess was a broken water heater in a neighbors basement. Sure enough, our neighbor said he thought maybe his brand new tank had just failed. I should have known better than to take his word for anything.

It our sewer backing up. Both his basement and mine are now awash in between 3 and 1 inches of sewage, depending on where in the basement you go. My book and comic collections are stored off the floor although the lowest shelf of my books is threatened if the 'water' rises much more. Linda was in the middle of reorganizing her office though, and many of her precious papers were on the floor and got soaked. Its too soon to tell how bad the damage is, but one of her childhood books that she retrieved from Copenhagen a year ago was soggy.

I ran around doing my best to shove stuff onto shelves and haul it off the floor. For now, we seem to have 'rescued' everything of any value, but I've had no chance to see what actual damage stuff got before the rescue. We've phoned the condo reps, and the city, and our insurance, and I'm about to go phone my parents. We were supposed to visit on Tuesday and this may have some sort of impact on them. I hope not. I hope its solved before then, but one of our neighbors (who now has a back-flow stopper on her drain to prevent this very problem) said it took five weeks to solve the problem when it happened to her. Then again, she says she had over two feet of water in her basement before she discovered the problem.