Another Great Flood

We're thinking of building an Ark. Like, Evan Almighty style. Our basement flooded in some storms AGAIN. Much worse this time-- like 3 inches of sanding water in places. It's just rotten.

Can you see the splash ring from my foot?

We discovered why and you're never going to believe it. We had what we thought was a newer sump pump with a battery backup. Those backups ONLY work when the power goes out, and not if the sump fails. But anyhow, the alarm went off on it all the time and we could never figure out why because we'd go down there and it would be pumping just fine... or so we thought.

The pump we were assuming was the whole show, was but a mere backup sump, which is utterly and completely fried and probably has been for some time. This explains why the alarm on the backup went off all the time, because it wasn't working and he water levels were too high.

Turns out there was ANOTHER sump down that nasty hole, underneath the first one. And it was old as dirt. But somehow still working intermittently. Aside from being overwhelmed twice during massive floodings (in the last 6 months) the old man was pumping away despite his age. We've retired him, however, and as you can see from the pictures, he's about 30 years old and a bit worse for wear! We've named him Boris.

Anyhow, I hate this house. Tom had to tear up all the carpet again, and poor pretzel is living in our home office again waiting on the insurance to come out and cut us a check so we can finish the clean up and get some new carpeting in there again. For the last time. Or I will burn down this house for the insurance money!!!!

And Tom had to dig trenches in our mud pit of a backyard again so we could try to relieve the overwhelmed sump and stop the water flow into the house. I don't even want to think about the amount of work it's going to take to fix all this come spring time.

Sigh. Our poor, poor carpet.

On a brighter note, we have a new friend. Meet R2D2.


So, when are the locusts coming? Or were those the cicadas? Keep a watchful eye for the horsemen of the apocolypse. It might be coming sooner than you think, or it might just be coming for my house...