We Were Swimming!

Well, maybe not quite, but close!

We had an interesting day yesterday! Bob woke me up telling me I had to call our apartment office because we had water in our kitchen! I went down to check it out and after farther inspection we figured it hadn't come from our pipes under our kitchen sink, it came from under the fridge and stove where we have no water. I was a little confused but as Bob went out the door he almost slipped on the ice on the sidewalk and looked up with a funny look on his face. I went out (in my PJ's ...hopefully nobody else saw me!) and saw what he was...the apartment 2 doors down from us on the end (we live in a townhouse - there are 6 in our row) had water just flowing out the front door from the floor and the ceiling! There is nobody living there and apparently they didn't have any heat on in there and the pipes froze. Not a good thing. The manager said that there was 18 inches of water downstairs and the pipes froze upstairs causing the ceiling to collapse. The apartment between us and the flood has a single mother in it who has a baby and she got 6 inches of water in her downstairs. All of her school books were destroyed (she goes to the same college that Bob does) and a bunch of her baby's toys. She probably wasn't as upset as I would have been but she doesn't have renters insurance so she has no way to replace any of it. She packed what she needed and headed to her moms. She said that the apartment management isn't taking any responsibility for it except to clean up the water. I feel really bad for her.

Thank God we only got a little water in our kitchen. I cleaned it up and only ended up with about 2 gallons in my mop bucket. I don't know what we would have done if that would have been us. I don't think I would have been as calm about it as my neighbor lady was. We do have renters insurance because of Bob's tools. They are SnapO*n and are not insured by the school in the hanger where he keeps them. He also has one of those rolling tool boxes that is SnapO*n so there is thousands of dollars worth of tools that we had to insure somehow. Plus we also put on the guns and I'm calling about the computers (yes, we have 3 computers not including Bob's i*PAQ and laptop) today! They were on the floor next to the wall that had 6 inches of water on the other side of it. We would have lost them plus our video camera, a bunch of dvd's and videos, the leap pads (all of which are stored on bottom shelves), my sewing machine and almost all of our pictures which are in boxes at the bottom of a closet. Not to mention a bunch of my sewing materials and yarn which are stored in the same closet.

This is the first time we have had renters insurance and we have ALWAYS rented but I'm not even sure it would have covered our losses here because it might have been considered a flood or because it started in and came from another apartment they may not have covered it. My sewing and knitting stuff wouldn't have really been worth trying to claim and my pictures wouldn't have been able to have been replaced. It might be worth it to go to W*Mart and get some plastic tubs to store some of that stuff in.

Thankfully the flood didn't get any worse and we ended up moving some of our stuff around so the computers are now off the floor just in case it happens again. The cleaners came in and we surprised that I cleaned up the water - like I would just leave an inch of water standing in my kitchen! We did end up getting 2 of those high powered industrial fans in our kitchen (from the clean up company) to make sure everything is dry under the cupboards and appliances. They are LOUD and have to stay running until tomorrow morning. And it doesn't leave much room to move around in there tiny as it is! Hopefully they will take care of any moisture that soaked into the drywall and prevent mold from growing.