Flooded basement!!!

So I was up all night getting buckets of water out of my basement... We even had to tear up the laminate flooring that we installed just a couple years ago.

The worst part of it is that my basement is extremely sound and dry and has never had any flooding problems before last night AND the flood was caused by a family member!

So last night my father was watching TV in the basement while doing some laundry and he decided to hand wash a few things in the big laundry sink/tub. So he plugged the sink and turned on the water and instead of waiting for it to fill up he went back to our rec. room to continue watching his show. Well he ended up sitting down and he forgot about the huge sink filling up.

I was upstairs with my mom so we didn't know what was going on but he fell asleep on the couch and the water poured out of the sink covering the laundry room (which has big shelves for storage and therefore ruined boxes)with water. The water then travelled into our newly renovaed landing area with floating floors (ruining them)and wetting the bottom of our new drywall. The water then travelled to the other side of our landing to the workbench and into the cold storage pantry. FINALLY it went into the rec.room which has carpet and soaked it considerably before the water touched his feet causing him to wake up!

So we had to borrow a couple shop-vac's, rip up the flooring, vaccum the water, squeegee it to our drain and then vaccum the carpet 4 times. Now we have 2 dehumidifiers set up to get the rest of the moisture out and hopefully we took enough water out of it and it's not going to get that gross wet basement smell because of it. If it does then we will have to rip out the carpet as well.

So after working hard for hours last night to get water out of our leak free basement all that is left to do now is wonder what the hell he was thinking when he started water walked away to watch TV again and then fell asleep.

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7 replies since 7th January 2011 • Last reply 7th January 2011

Reply #1:

Wow! I don't think they have homeowners insurance that covers stupidity. That really sucks! I hope your carpet isn't completely ruined. Talk about a tough break!

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Reply #2:

No unfortunately they don't. hahaha

Last night while the entire family was walking around in puddles I had to laugh at the situation. What's done is done so there is no use crying about it and if you think about it it's pretty funny.

The best part was that he was going to try to get rid of the water alone without us knowing probably because he was embarrased. So when I was upstairs with my mom he came up the stairs and I noticed that his shirt was a bit wet so I asked "Why are you wet?" and he said "Oh, it's nothing... Do we have a sqeegee?" and that's when we went down there and found the water.

So now we have a good laugh about how only a squeegee was going to fix the water situation.

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Reply #3:

lol that's funny! Its good that you have such a good sense of humor about it! I always like to see the funny side of situations like that. Happy

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Reply #4:

ooh noes. Not fun, well hope you had fun mopping it all up.

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Reply #5:

Your poor dad..he must have felt so embarrassed. Esp. since dad's are "supposed" to fix things not break them!
Maybe he subconsciously wanted an indoor pool?

At least it was him and not you! otherwise you wouldn't hear the end of it...

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Reply #6:

I think there is need of renovation to your basement... try my idea.. after that your father will be happy... <a href="http://www.basementideas.org/top-basement-ideas.html">http://www.basementideas.org/top-basement-ideas.html</a>

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Reply #7:

Sorry to hear that happened but at least you could find the light in the situation and laugh it off which always helps. Hopefully the dehumidifier does its job.

We nearly had a similar situation in our kitchen when we moved in 2 months ago with our washing machine. We couldnt figure out why the washing machine kept stopping and wouldnt empty. So my fiancee Josh opens the filter and all the water comes gushing out all over our kitchen (thankfully the laminate protected the floor) soaking all towels laid out, I was stressing, Josh and his sister were laughing. We couldnt find any blockage in the filter so Josh's mum comes round and checks the drainage plumbing in the sink and finds it was a plastic bottle cap. We reconnect the washing machin and it all works fine, no leaks.

Turns out the past tennants of the house had the bright idea to block it up so they could use the sink without it leaking after they moved their washing machine out.

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