The Sump Pump took a Dump

I took a, very much needed, mental health day on Friday. I tend to take on too much and then burn myself out, so I was very much looking forward to having two whole days of cleaning and relaxing.

Frank woke up, as usual, at 5:30 to get ready for work. I rolled over and was dozing off when he came upstairs to tell me there was water in the laundry room. Apparently, I thought this was a dream or just didn’t think much of it, so I went back to sleep.

When I finally woke up at 8:30, sure enough, there was some water in the laundry room. I mopped up what I could but the kitchen rug we have under the shelving unit in there had been soaked. As it turns out that this water was overflowing from the sump pump. Awesome. Not knowing what to do (hey, give me a break, I’ve never lived in a house before!) I called my parents and they weren’t sure what to do either. I called Frank and he had already made a call to our good friend (and contractor) to come over to take a look at it.

He came over later that morning. The surge protector that holds the plug, tripped and apparently did something to the battery. He told us he would send over a shop vac (for the rug) and a charger for the battery. He helped me put a space heater and fan in there to air it out and we opened the window, shut off the light and closed the door.

We’re very lucky to have a plethora of friends who do things like this for a living and are always willing to lend a hand. So the next night we talked to our other friend (who owns his own sewer & drain company) and he asked us to send him a picture of it and he’d tell us exactly what needed to be done.

The drying out of the rug and room took a couple days, especially since the shop vac really didn’t do a thing. When I got home yesterday, the house smelled musty. I’m sure it’s from the rug, so I Febreze-d the heck out of it, opened the window and turned the fan back on. Nope, still stinky this morning! The rug has got to go, but it’s under a shelving unit housing hundreds of pounds of stuff.

Our fiend is coming over later to install a new battery for us and then we’ll be all set. I told Frank to get his help to slowly lift each corner to grab that rug and toss it. I certainly can’t do it!

So much for my mental health day! It never fails that every time I try to take a day off work something happens to me. (Last time I took a day off to recover after a weekend full of events, I woke up with food poisoning). Oh well, at least it’s all under control and relatively inexpensive.