Black Water.. a Disgusting & Depressing Story!

Here is a picture of a part of my basement. That is my scrapbook room there in the back. The floor looks.... shiny. Well, it isn't shiny, that is WATER you see! Black water... which is sewer water. This past Monday night I went down to the basement for something and as soon as I reached the bottom step I noticed a pool of water!! *GASP* I happened to be barefoot so I rolled up my pants and stepped in to check things out. It was only a couple inches deep, but you don't want ANY water in your home of course. Looked to the left in the bathroom ... EW. VERY DISGUSTING! I did take a picture but I will spare you the details. I went back around to the left to see the rest of the basement. Yep.. the water had reached a good part of the basement. All around our bar, our fridge, under the stairs, the pool table, the babies playroom, my scrapbook room, the work-out room.... 2 rooms were untouched and I am counting my blessings!! Our "tv" room which we had carpeted was untouched! SWEET. Also our storage room. Thank you God! All of our Christmas stuff and other stuff would have been ruined as the boxes are sitting on the floor. I had photo boxes and scrapbook paper sitting on the floor of my scrapbook room... so sad.

So, what happened??
Tree roots broke into our main water pipe outside. This is a pretty common problem I found out, but a bad expensive problem. The tree roots cut into the pipe looking for water.. find water and grow in your pipe clogging your pipe, forcing all your home's water drainage to go back into your home! In our case it came back through the basement toilet and also a drain on the floor in our hot water heater closet...covering each side of the basement. We had to get a plumber come in on Monday night if we wanted to use water or be able to flush a toilet. He was there until 12 am. He rooted out many tree roots. He suggested getting a new pipe ... which is OUTRAGEOUS. But if we do not fix it or prevent it, it will happen again. We don't even know which tree it is. We have 2 in the front and 4 in the back. We would basically have to take out a loan to get a new pipe so we are looking at alternative solutions. As for the water damage, home insurance covers that. That is great, but it is still depressing that we already had the work done just 7 months ago after we moved in. We have to find contractors to do the work all over again. ServiceMaster came out yesterday to start cleaning and restoring our basement. Here are a few pics:

SIGH: the playroom. The carpet is gone. As you can see, they took out a lot of the drywall and most of the baseboards. I am no expert, so I have no idea if this means ALL of the drywall has to be replaced or if they can just patch up the lower part of the walls?? I know baseboards are easy enough to nail back in.

The main floor of the basement. Apparently the tiles can be cleaned... the one thing we DID want replaced:) Oh well.

The work out room. It had berber carpet. When we repaint - I think I will choose a different color. The blue doesn't pump me up! LOL

A few things I have learned from this experience.

1. It is VERY important to have a savings account. In fact, outside of bills and groceries, money should not be spent on anything else!! Maybe treat yourself to one thing once a month or so! Cause it is going to RAIN one day!

2. I married a very patient man. I don't always consider him a patient man, but when things get bad and all I can do is whine and cry and carry on... he is silent. He is patient. He calmly explains to me (again and again) that freaking out does not help the situation. I wish I could be more like my husband and less like a raving lunatic!

3. My son rocks! Zach is amazing. AMAZING! When things get tough, he rises to the occasion. He temporarily becomes an adult - a third parental figure in this house. He helps without being asked or told. While Scott and I were in the basement... using towels, moving out drenched area rugs, using a wet/dry vac to suck up the water, we completely lost track of time. It was after 9. The babies go to bed at 9. I ran upstairs to take care of the kids and Zach had already given them their evening milk and took them upstairs to watch a video. I was so proud:)