You'll Never Believe What These Homeowners Found In Their Basement After a Heavy Rain!
Last fall, we paid to get half of our house waterproofed. The goal was to prevent minor seepage that consistently occurred along that side of the house.
Our timing was very good. This summer our neighborhood has been pounded repeatedly by short heavy rainstorms where many inches of rain (and even more centimeters!) have fallen in a short amount of time. Several of our neighbors, particularly to the north, have had their basements flooded to varying degrees multiple times. For most, it is the first time that they've ever had water in their basements. Our basement survived all of those storms unscathed.
Last night there was an extremely heavy rainstorm. It was so heavy that parts of the nearby interstate flooded and closed - think "water up to the taillights" with first responders rescuing drivers with inflatable rafts. One of my neighbors texted me to see if we had water in our basement, because most of them did get flooded again. I did a quick inspection, and found a very small amount of water in the closet we use as a pantry. That happens to be against our driveway, on the side of the house that didn't get waterproofed because it was much more expensive to do the whole house and then redo the driveway. Some water actually pools near that part of the driveway during heavy rains, so I am not surprised. Fortunately, the walls that were waterproofed don't seem to have let in any water at all, so the overall waterproofing investment appears to have paid off. The worst that happened is that we confirmed that we really should get the rest of the house waterproofed at some point.
Now here's the weird part. While I was inspecting the basement, I found a dead bird (specifically, a sparrow, per M) lying on the floor behind the boiler. I have no idea how long it has been there, as it was in a place where you couldn't see it unless you intentionally looked behind the boiler, which I haven't had reason to do since last fall. The sparrow seemed more or less intact, but it's cool and dry in that corner of the basement so maybe it has been there a long time and dried out. Even more confusingly, there are no windows that open in our basement, so how did a dead bird get down there in the first place? We don't have a cat that would have dragged it in. Tulip has been gone for two years now, and while she certainly enjoyed chasing birds the idea that she would have caught one, brought it in the house and taken it into the basement and left it intact is ludicrous so that it wasn't noticed for two years, including at least one visit for boiler maintenance... well, that clearly didn't happen.
We do have a doorway that goes directly down a flight of stairs to our basement. When the waterproofing work was done they took over our basement for a few hours, so our best guess right now is that they left the door to the basement open, and the bird flew in there and died. I suppose it could have flown into the house some time since then, but all our windows are screened and we rarely open them since we got air conditioning. We do have one door that isn't screened which is occasionally opened, but it opens into a screened porch. And even if the bird had flown in through that a door or window, it would then have had to fly around the house and down the stairs into the basement without anyone noticing it. I would have said this was nigh impossible, but I didn't hallucinate picking up a dead sparrow in a plastic bag last night so I guess improbable is a more accurate term.
Even more improbably, this is the second time this has happened to me. When I was growing up in North Dakota we once found a dead bird in the computer room, which was in our basement. All the windows in that house were screened as well, and we never had furry pets. As best as were ever able to determine, someone opened the screen door to the porch to walk out and didn't close the door immediately. The bird would still have had to fly down the stairs and into the computer room and die with nobody noticing it, which again, seems pretty unlikely. But given enough chances, even the improbable becomes possible.
Our timing was very good. This summer our neighborhood has been pounded repeatedly by short heavy rainstorms where many inches of rain (and even more centimeters!) have fallen in a short amount of time. Several of our neighbors, particularly to the north, have had their basements flooded to varying degrees multiple times. For most, it is the first time that they've ever had water in their basements. Our basement survived all of those storms unscathed.
Last night there was an extremely heavy rainstorm. It was so heavy that parts of the nearby interstate flooded and closed - think "water up to the taillights" with first responders rescuing drivers with inflatable rafts. One of my neighbors texted me to see if we had water in our basement, because most of them did get flooded again. I did a quick inspection, and found a very small amount of water in the closet we use as a pantry. That happens to be against our driveway, on the side of the house that didn't get waterproofed because it was much more expensive to do the whole house and then redo the driveway. Some water actually pools near that part of the driveway during heavy rains, so I am not surprised. Fortunately, the walls that were waterproofed don't seem to have let in any water at all, so the overall waterproofing investment appears to have paid off. The worst that happened is that we confirmed that we really should get the rest of the house waterproofed at some point.
Now here's the weird part. While I was inspecting the basement, I found a dead bird (specifically, a sparrow, per M) lying on the floor behind the boiler. I have no idea how long it has been there, as it was in a place where you couldn't see it unless you intentionally looked behind the boiler, which I haven't had reason to do since last fall. The sparrow seemed more or less intact, but it's cool and dry in that corner of the basement so maybe it has been there a long time and dried out. Even more confusingly, there are no windows that open in our basement, so how did a dead bird get down there in the first place? We don't have a cat that would have dragged it in. Tulip has been gone for two years now, and while she certainly enjoyed chasing birds the idea that she would have caught one, brought it in the house and taken it into the basement and left it intact is ludicrous so that it wasn't noticed for two years, including at least one visit for boiler maintenance... well, that clearly didn't happen.
We do have a doorway that goes directly down a flight of stairs to our basement. When the waterproofing work was done they took over our basement for a few hours, so our best guess right now is that they left the door to the basement open, and the bird flew in there and died. I suppose it could have flown into the house some time since then, but all our windows are screened and we rarely open them since we got air conditioning. We do have one door that isn't screened which is occasionally opened, but it opens into a screened porch. And even if the bird had flown in through that a door or window, it would then have had to fly around the house and down the stairs into the basement without anyone noticing it. I would have said this was nigh impossible, but I didn't hallucinate picking up a dead sparrow in a plastic bag last night so I guess improbable is a more accurate term.
Even more improbably, this is the second time this has happened to me. When I was growing up in North Dakota we once found a dead bird in the computer room, which was in our basement. All the windows in that house were screened as well, and we never had furry pets. As best as were ever able to determine, someone opened the screen door to the porch to walk out and didn't close the door immediately. The bird would still have had to fly down the stairs and into the computer room and die with nobody noticing it, which again, seems pretty unlikely. But given enough chances, even the improbable becomes possible.