What a day!  We got a call from our Michigan neighbor, Charlie, who wanted to know if we would like him to check Michigan place again since the water table had risen. 

We’d had had a problem with our basement sump pump a few weeks ago and Charlie had checked but we felt we’d be okay.  The water was over-running the sump hole, but with a block retaining wall, we felt we wouldn’t have any actual flooding beyond the sump hole.  But today the water in the basement was about a foot deep.  Our cluttered basement was a mess!  We’ve been planning to clean it out, but John’s poor health and my wrist problems the past few years have limited what we could do.  Instead of cleaning, we’d added to the mess. 

After Charlie said we have a problem we called a disaster recovery company and, after installing a new sump pump, they have started to drain the foot of water.

The company sent us a few sickening photos.  We can see an upright bass in a case (still standing but probably wet).  There’s one hammered dulcimer floating past and lots of saturated boxes. 

After the water’s drained away, they’ll move our car out of the garage and put all of the stuff in the garage to dry.  Maybe some will be salvageable.  We wanted a total purge, but not this way!!!

We’ve contacted our furnace and water heater company to see if they will need work before being restarted.

WHAT A MESS! 

When we first discovered the problem, we actually thought about heading north four weeks early, but we have company (my daughter from California) and we are expecting our good friends from Mexico next week.  We figure that even if we were home, we’d have to hire help.  It’s not easy to do it by phone, but so far we’ve been successful.

Thank heavens I can access our Simplisafe system so we can turn our security off and when we want the place to be secure we can relock it.  In other works the workers can come in but we can “lock it back up” so we’ll be notified if anyone opens a door.

Wish us luck!