For those interested, pictures of the damage and my new, carpetless basement can be found here.

I was about to take pictures of the pond that was my sidewalk/back door and the swamp in my backyard when I noticed that the drains were no longer working, so that’s not documented. And I missed getting a picture of me, after I had gone wading outside, with my hair more plastered than Audrey Hepburn’s, so ya’ll will just have to imagine it. I looked fabulous.

It already smells so much better down there.

I’m hoping that this is the end of the saga…

I came home today and was overwhelmed by the musky smell from my basement. I managed to borrow a carpet cleaner from a friend and used that to suck up tons of water last night, but it was no use. The carpet was still wet and the glue was so saturated that the carpet was just peeling back from the floor. So I continued to help it along and pulled up all the carpet squares, except for those under the couch (which will get down when I get some muscle men here tonight). I had thought about saving it and trying to put it back down once it had dried, but I don’t have anyplace to hang them up to dry and they’re already sticking together, so they’re going to the trash. The floor is a rather dull gray, btw, but I’d take puce if it means that the smell is gone.

We’re going for a rug next time. A nice, easy to lift up when the flood waters come again type of rug.

Still on the list to do to make my house better for the next rain:

Clean out gutters
Silicon seal the window pane/sill
Buckets and towels (bad decision to leave all of my crappy towels behind)
Buy new window sill covers ($40 for a piece of plastic!)
Laundry of all of the wet clothes that got caught in the uprising

So much to do. Too lazy to do it.

I’m so thankful that the damage wasn’t worse. My next door neighbors had water coming in their back door, flooding their kitchen and spent all night Saturday and Sunday hauling water. Another friend had sewage backup in her basement, which is wayyy worse. And you’ve probably all seen the video of the houses that floated away and the dam that broke. That would have been truly terrifying. All in all, I’ve been blessed by friends who were willing to come when I called, a drain that only backup for 20 minutes and then cleared, leaving my furniture, furnance, water heater and washer/dryer and TV functional and mostly dry. And I’ve got easy to remove carpet as well.