My House May Hate Me

If you are a homeowner you know that just when everything seems to be going right you get a surprise. It's commonly called "the joys of being a homeowner." The truth is there is no joy to these surprises (which are more like sneak attacks, if you buy into my conspiracy theory.) I believe that my house just may be against me - which is odd because I love it so.

Yes the reason we moved into our beautiful Attica homestead is because well I fell in love with this house and then really Bruce had no choice in the matter. So after last year's Christmas fiascoes I thought we deserved a reprieve from home catastrophes. Apparently I was wrong - which pains me when these events happen and I get that look (no words just a look) from my dear husband that says - "you are the one that wanted to buy THIS HOUSE."

This morning, I wake up after a couple of snoozes (it's getting to be that time of year -- when I could use a break -- and the snooze seems to be enough of a tease that I keep going.) Well I get up, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth turn the shower on only to realize that there is no hot water. I try the sink - no hot water. The bathtub - no hot water. I try the sink again- NO HOT WATER! I immediately call to my loving husband, who begrudgingly gets out of bed to investigate.

Well some time between 11:30 pm and 6 am - we had a plumbing disaster. Bruce went into the basement to find at least a foot of water. The supply pipe to my washer had simply popped out of its connector (yes I am sure that is a plumbing term - ok I made it up, but you get what I mean - if not picture this a pipe turned into fountain spewing water in the little room under our stairs that houses my cats liter and food, then flowing through the sub floor into the basement.)

So over night gallons of the warm water (then cold after the 50 gallon hot water heater emptied) spewed into this small room and then into our basement. Bruce springs into action and I follow trying to clean up this disaster. We manage to get enough cleaned up to get to work (I was an hour late - which means my students got a reprieve from a quiz - hmmm maybe they are part of this conspiracy.) However, trying to clean a liter box filled full of water at 6 am is not pleasant activity. But that became a priority because I could not let the cats go all day without a liter box, that would had led to more cleaning up- yuck. Bruce focused on shot-vacuuming the water out of the basement. He was able to get all the water out of the basement.

So what have we learned, well with all this house conspiracy we have a little to be thankful for - that this did not happen when we were gone for a weekend outing where one foot of water could have been many feet (the water will be now turned off when we are not home) and that it was the hot water because if I hadn't needed a warm shower, I may not have noticed the problem until we got home from work.

So this November, Bruce and I will be gifting ourselves a sump pump - so in the rare case that our home has another plumbing disaster up its sleeve we will at least not have a foot of water in the basement. Anyone have a line on a trusty plumber?

So the question I pose to you - fellow homeowners -- does every homeowner really go through what we have been going through? I don't remember these things happening to my parents year after year. Yes every so often something would happen, but it always felt like they got at least a two year break. Maybe I was oblivious because I was a kid and I couldn't fix it, but I beg to differ.