published October 12, 2006
Returning from a lunch date last Tuesday, I changed into my riding clothes and spent a little time checking my email. Little did I know that unseen chaos was unfolding at the other end of the house. Twenty minutes later, I went back to my bedroom to get my shoes and made a bad discovery.
First of all, there was a hissing noise that no bedroom should make, unless it’s a den of snakes. And second, why was my bathroom floor so shiny?
Water splashed up between my toes as I walked across the carpet and into the bathroom. Pushing my floating tennis shoes out of the way as I waded through the dressing area, I finally found the source of the hissing; the supply line from the toilet tank was spewing water everywhere.
I turned off the valve and looked around. In my typical desire to see the bright side, I decided that I could just mop up all of this water, put a couple of fans in the room, and all would be well.
After emptying twenty full mop buckets, I re-thought my optimism. The leak had flooded two closets, half of my bedroom, the bath on the opposite side of the wall and the hallway.
What to do now? I wondered, then decided to call Dale at work, so he could wonder with me.
“Should I call someone?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen it.”
“Well, it’s really wet.”
Dale was not about to make a decision without seeing what was wrong, so finally I told him, “I’ll wait until you get home before calling anyone.”
After waiting and wading for about an hour, I decided to call the insurance company. Jodie Ellison at State Farm was incredibly helpful, giving me the name of a water damage company and getting me a claim number.
Jodie convinced me that I should call the cleanup company right away. I did, and their representative said that someone would be at my house between 6 and 7 o’clock that evening.
I should have called Dale and told him, but I didn’t. I thought that, like most service companies, they’d call me at 7:30 to say that they would be at my house tomorrow instead – if they even called at all. My experience has been that I have to chase service companies down to find out that I’m not even on their list of things to do.
Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at 6 p.m., and there stood Rick from ServiceMasters. He stayed until 9, removing large chunks of carpet and setting up fans and dehumidifiers to dry everything out.
Dale was a little cranky that I didn’t call him, because he could have stayed at work longer, but I was in love. At last, a repair man who shows up on time!
After two days of sleeping in the guest room and using Marcus’ bathroom, the walls were finally dry and we moved back to our own bed and shower, and proceeded to the task of replacing the carpet. Along the way, my Pollyanna nature returned and I was able to focus on the good part of our bad experience.
For example, we were luckier than a lot of people who have to listen to the industrial strength fans for a week. And at least it was clean water that leaked, as I remembered the pictures from Hurricane Katrina while I mopped up. Also, I’m really glad that I had cleaned the guest room so we could have a normal space for sleeping.
But the best thing about this bad situation? It gave me plenty to talk about in my column.