It's true. New padding has been laid, the carpet has been reattached to the tack strip, but we still think it smells. We're going to get one more carpet cleaning.
In the mean time, slowly, very slowly, we are rewashing all our clothes. The fans that dried the carpet spread a lot of dust.
We went through our closets, trying everything on, and decided to donate a huge box of clothes in good condition to our local hospital. We found out that many of the people who go there HAVE NO CLOTHING TO GO HOME IN! Some of them are homeless. Some had their clothes cut off of them in an emergency situation and just don't have any family or friends near enough to bring them clothes.
And we are not going to ask for a tax deduction either.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
THE NOT SO SMELL GOOD PLUMBER - IT'S NOT MY JOB MAN! AND THE DROUGHT
OUR BATHROOM WAS FLOODED WITH SEWAGE...
Recently we had the experience of getting up way early on a Sunday morning, walking the dog before the sun was up over the horizon, having a cup of coffee, and then going back to bed. At some point while we were sleeping, our plumbing silently went bezerk. We finally convinced ourselves to get up and start the day, maybe walk to the public swimming pool for a swim, when we realized that water was all over the bathroom floor and making it's way into our bedroom, living room, and office.
We threw some towels in but that was not enough. We waded in wearing rubber shoes and realized that there was sewage half the way up the bath tub and that what we were wading was, in fact, sewage water.
Soon one of us made a phone call to the local firehouse to see if maybe they had a wet vac (no go) and another to the plumber around the corner who advised us to shut the water off to the house from the outside to stop the flooding. This worked as soon after the toilet was gurgling and the sewage water in the tub went down, but there was no doubt what had been in it. This plumber only does commercial work, so he couldn't come out.
After contacting a plumber who said he could come out, we waited six hours, and he snaked the piping, saying that our sewage main was stopped up and couldn't hold the pressure of the water. Then the carpet cleaner came and went, leaving us to throw away carpet padding on our own as this one didn't even carry plastic bags with him and to run at full speed 24/7 our one household fan to dry it as he doesn't provide fans.
Then it flooded again. This time the sewage main was snaked all the way out to the street. While the first plumber wondered aloud if we threw anything in there such as nonflushable toweling, which we are sure we didn't, this one said that he just thought it was "a lot of slime." As he was leaving he said, "Sorry about your floor but we have a company policy. If we didn't make the mess we don't clean it up." Of course he had been walking in the crap to snake our system and he walked that all over the living room carpet, the parts that were dry.
We are now, with our one household fan and the air- conditioning noisily running, unable to use our bedroom. The carpet is propped up off the floor in with a couple of bottles of our cleaning fluid that the carpet cleaner appropriated. We wonder when we will be in our own bed again and if we will be breathing contaminants.
We've spent days waiting for workers who did not show up at all or showed up hours late. Our Labor Day weekend was ruined. Two of our days we had to walk to the corner restaurant to use a toilet. We went without a shower for several days, finally resporting to washing our hair and sink bathing in the kitchen.
THE BATHROOM FLOOR REMAINED LITTERED WITH SEWAGE which we had thrown lots of newspaper down on to soak up the water in. It smelled. Our cabinetry is warped, our water and electric bills will be very high, and we're out a couple hundred bucks in bath towels, paper towels, the purchase of cleaning supplies we would not normally buy, and so on.
THE CARPET CLEANERS WERE AWARE IT WAS A SEWAGE PROBLEM but they did not wish to help us with the bathroom. Our furniture is all around in a chaotic crazy-making scene, blocking a view to our television set as the carpet dries. When we come home we open the door and do a sniff test. To us it still smells a little outhouse. Our dog will not even enter the bedroom or the bathroom.
So we called ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH. They said they could not come out. And so it went.
WHAT WE ARE PERPLEXED, ok PISSED OFF, about is the IT'S NOT MY JOB, MAN attitude we encountered. NOT MY JOB. Everyone made it clear the bathroom floor was NOT THEIR JOB. No one offered to do it, not even for MORE MONEY!
Certainly ours cannot be the only home that had a sewage emergency in recent times.
So we bought rubber gloves, face masks, used more newspaper, let it soak up and dry, and removed it, then scrubbed with ammonia and scrubbed some more. Sad to admit but it's been a week and we still have newspaper all around the immediate tub area. It's just too much for us to do and try to keep up with our life.
Talking to a friend, she said, YOU NEEDED TO CALL THE SMELL-GOOD PLUMBER. This is a local plumbing syndicate of many years duration that advertises on local radio programs. They say that their plumbers themselves SMELL GOOD. If one of their plumbers shows up with B.O. then you don't have to pay them! Besides using good deodorant and washing their hands, what's implied is that their plumbers WILL NOT LEAVE A MESS FOR YOU TO CLEAN UP!
Another realization we had was that this plumbing problem WAS PROBABLY ABOUT THE DROUGHT. You see, we've been voluntarily cutting down on the number of showers we take to save water for California. Instead of every day, we take showers every other day, and if we go swimming we shower at the pool. We realized that by not having gallons of water going down our drain every day, the pipes are not getting the regular cleaning action of water running through them.
Recently we had the experience of getting up way early on a Sunday morning, walking the dog before the sun was up over the horizon, having a cup of coffee, and then going back to bed. At some point while we were sleeping, our plumbing silently went bezerk. We finally convinced ourselves to get up and start the day, maybe walk to the public swimming pool for a swim, when we realized that water was all over the bathroom floor and making it's way into our bedroom, living room, and office.
We threw some towels in but that was not enough. We waded in wearing rubber shoes and realized that there was sewage half the way up the bath tub and that what we were wading was, in fact, sewage water.
Soon one of us made a phone call to the local firehouse to see if maybe they had a wet vac (no go) and another to the plumber around the corner who advised us to shut the water off to the house from the outside to stop the flooding. This worked as soon after the toilet was gurgling and the sewage water in the tub went down, but there was no doubt what had been in it. This plumber only does commercial work, so he couldn't come out.
After contacting a plumber who said he could come out, we waited six hours, and he snaked the piping, saying that our sewage main was stopped up and couldn't hold the pressure of the water. Then the carpet cleaner came and went, leaving us to throw away carpet padding on our own as this one didn't even carry plastic bags with him and to run at full speed 24/7 our one household fan to dry it as he doesn't provide fans.
Then it flooded again. This time the sewage main was snaked all the way out to the street. While the first plumber wondered aloud if we threw anything in there such as nonflushable toweling, which we are sure we didn't, this one said that he just thought it was "a lot of slime." As he was leaving he said, "Sorry about your floor but we have a company policy. If we didn't make the mess we don't clean it up." Of course he had been walking in the crap to snake our system and he walked that all over the living room carpet, the parts that were dry.
We are now, with our one household fan and the air- conditioning noisily running, unable to use our bedroom. The carpet is propped up off the floor in with a couple of bottles of our cleaning fluid that the carpet cleaner appropriated. We wonder when we will be in our own bed again and if we will be breathing contaminants.
We've spent days waiting for workers who did not show up at all or showed up hours late. Our Labor Day weekend was ruined. Two of our days we had to walk to the corner restaurant to use a toilet. We went without a shower for several days, finally resporting to washing our hair and sink bathing in the kitchen.
THE BATHROOM FLOOR REMAINED LITTERED WITH SEWAGE which we had thrown lots of newspaper down on to soak up the water in. It smelled. Our cabinetry is warped, our water and electric bills will be very high, and we're out a couple hundred bucks in bath towels, paper towels, the purchase of cleaning supplies we would not normally buy, and so on.
THE CARPET CLEANERS WERE AWARE IT WAS A SEWAGE PROBLEM but they did not wish to help us with the bathroom. Our furniture is all around in a chaotic crazy-making scene, blocking a view to our television set as the carpet dries. When we come home we open the door and do a sniff test. To us it still smells a little outhouse. Our dog will not even enter the bedroom or the bathroom.
So we called ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH. They said they could not come out. And so it went.
WHAT WE ARE PERPLEXED, ok PISSED OFF, about is the IT'S NOT MY JOB, MAN attitude we encountered. NOT MY JOB. Everyone made it clear the bathroom floor was NOT THEIR JOB. No one offered to do it, not even for MORE MONEY!
Certainly ours cannot be the only home that had a sewage emergency in recent times.
So we bought rubber gloves, face masks, used more newspaper, let it soak up and dry, and removed it, then scrubbed with ammonia and scrubbed some more. Sad to admit but it's been a week and we still have newspaper all around the immediate tub area. It's just too much for us to do and try to keep up with our life.
Talking to a friend, she said, YOU NEEDED TO CALL THE SMELL-GOOD PLUMBER. This is a local plumbing syndicate of many years duration that advertises on local radio programs. They say that their plumbers themselves SMELL GOOD. If one of their plumbers shows up with B.O. then you don't have to pay them! Besides using good deodorant and washing their hands, what's implied is that their plumbers WILL NOT LEAVE A MESS FOR YOU TO CLEAN UP!
Another realization we had was that this plumbing problem WAS PROBABLY ABOUT THE DROUGHT. You see, we've been voluntarily cutting down on the number of showers we take to save water for California. Instead of every day, we take showers every other day, and if we go swimming we shower at the pool. We realized that by not having gallons of water going down our drain every day, the pipes are not getting the regular cleaning action of water running through them.
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