Aug 01, 2010 15:36
Stop screwing with me.
Lost the majority of the handmade xmas ornaments the kids have done since they were little. To a pinhole leak in a pipe in a remote corner of the basement that could NEVER EVER flood, so I felt safe putting cardboard boxes there, and pictures and lithographs and such without any plastic on them. What I could save is outside on the deck trying to dry in the sun. Except the sun went away. I'm hoping most of the stuff is salvagable, even if it is warped a bit after it dries out. =( Of course, all the stupid glass and plastic ornaments? Safe in a big plastic box. The special ones? I put in a huge cardboard box. Cause I'm wicked smart like that. =(
The pinhole still exists. Nothing is stopping it. it's right at a joint so it's going to have to be replaced and it'll suck, but for now I've tried everything I could think of. I just went to the little store down the road, a feat in itself as I've been sick and haven't really eaten since Friday midday, and got a little kit with a clamp and a square of rubber. Great concept. Put the rubber over the hole, clamp it down and it stops. Except it doesn't. Which means that I have to either turn the water off or keep a bucket under this and keep emptying it.
Keeping the water off in general is not a problem except when you have a stomach bug that you have now shared with your son. It's good we have 2 bathrooms, and that's all I will say about that.
Oh...and how did we FIND the leak, given it's in a corner we never go to? Well, in trying to kill a yellow jacket nest that is currently embedded in my kitchen wall under my thru-the-wall piece of shit air conditioner (which now explains why I keep finding "bees" in my house from time to time, they are crawling through the masterly placed pieces of FOAM that make up the barrier between the outside and the places where the AC does not FIT through the whole because it's smaller than the one that was there in the first place), I noticed the concrete blocks that make up the basement wall were dark with water - water that was dripping from the casement window - water that should not be there because there's no PIPE above that window. Turns out it was the pinhole that was positioned so perfectly it was spraying at the top of the window from across the room...and flooding everything under it.
Kelsey messaged me from Vienna - they're in a hotel there, and it must have a computer because updates are popping up on Facebook - apparently Friday night at the going away party with the southern school group, all the kids got together and gave Kelsey enough money to replace the camera that was stolen. Klara told me she cried. Got her replacement phone/ipod all set up, and will try to find a Fedex place at some point tomorrow to send it over with her new debit card. I hope she likes it - with my luck she'll be the one kid on the face of the planet that doesn't want an iphone.
God I feel like hell.
basement,
germany,
kelsey