I've been trying to save money for college, but now I see it trickling away into an interesting "series of unfortunate events" at my other house.
It began last week when Lisa called me to inform me the upstairs shower was dripping into the downstairs shower. A plumber came over and told me there was a rusting hole in the drain and the upstairs bathtub needed to be replaced. He said he would fix it on Wednesday.
I scheduled Wednesday off as a vacation day since this was not "sick-day-worthy." Wednesday morning he called in sick. I went into work. And the basement in the other house flooded.
I put the girls up in a hotel room while we tried to figure things out.
Plumber #2 came over the next day to see what was going on. "Yes, the tub needs fixing" he said. $2,000 dollars later, I discovered the tub had been dripping for so long there was black mold on the ceiling of the shower below. The water heater had caused the flood in the garage.
I called Gus, my friendly handyman for help. He was busy so he sent over his brother-in-law, Dave. Nice guy who's saving my hide.
The blessings so far? I'm lucky this happened while I was still in town. I'm lucky Lisa discovered this a few days before moving out of the house. I'm glad Sara was using the upstairs shower at the same time so we could see the leak. I'm glad the water heater exploded, causing me to call a new plumber who I trusted. The new guy was Czech -- and was kicked out of the country 30 years before for being an anarchist in the then-communist regime. I'm lucky Lisa hadn't moved her furniture into the garage yet as she had planned -- same with my friend Ansley.
Friday night -- the goodbye party for Lisa. I use Tracey & Eugene's wet-vac downstairs to suck up the water that had soaked onto the carpet. Nichole comes downstairs and suggests I take up the carpet. She calls one of her friends who works at Chem-dry (where she worked for about 7 years). He instructs us on how to tear up the carpet without ruining it... and how to pull out the sopping rugs below. With pliers, scissors, and a butter knife, we tugged in our nice clothes as our friends (including a few "boys") remained upstairs. She helped me save the carpet.
Her friends came over the next day to give me an estimate -- and included a "Nichole discount" for me. Dave came over too to move the water heater so it would release outside the house instead of in the garage. But the elements were still broken.
I went over last night to check it out. I couldn't figure it out, but what I did notice on that rainy evening... was the gutter in the front which appeared to almost fall off the house.
Which brings us to tonight. The carpets were fixed. Dave brought a friend over to fix the water heater (fingers crossed that it actually works!). The rain began pouring so hard... it started coming into the garage. Dave and the carpet guys dropped what they were doing to stop the water. The carpet guys hooked up their super-soaking vaccum to catch all the water. Anything that looked wet, they picked up and cleaned off.
So far I've spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars to see these blessings. Although I love seeing how they continue to turn out, I hope the next few are a little less expensive... It will be interesting to see what else happens.