This past Monday, Detroit experienced a record-breaking four inches of rain which caused massive flooding throughout the city. If you are reading this from somewhere other than Michigan, you may have missed all the craziness. We had people abandoning their cars on our major freeways because the flood waters were so high. In most neighborhoods in the suburbs basements flooded. We were one of the unfortunate causalities of the floods. Our basement flooded with about a foot of sewage water.
As you can see it was pretty disgusting and it smelled terrible as well. Unfortunately, the basement was John’s man cave and he lost most of his stuff. With sewage water you pretty much have to throw everything away.
We spent the entire week clearing the basement and living with the smell. This is our big trash pile.
I am happy to report that the basement has been officially and thoroughly cleared and sterilized.
The bad news is that our renter’s insurance didn’t cover any of this, as we didn’t purchase the sewage backup rider.
The good news is that our landlord is working to fix the drywall and should have everything re-carpeted in the next few weeks. He has also decided to re-carpet the main floor, so once we can move all of our tubs of stuff back to the basement, we have to clear the entire main floor so they can carpet.
All of this is a tad overwhelming, not just because we lost so much of our stuff, but because it is a lot of work to get through in a short amount of time. In the next month our entire basement and main floor will be packed up. At this point I feel like we should just move since we are already packed up. Currently, we have tubs upon tubs of stuff in our living room and I actually am using one as a foot rest as I can’t really sit on my couch.
We could use some encouragement this week so I thought this verse was perfect:
I have to also take a moment and thank my wonderful parents who were here everyday helping us pack up the basement. We couldn’t have done it without them and we are truly blessed to have them in our lives!
To all of my readers who have experienced flooding this week I encourage you to stay strong and hang in there! This will all be over soon!
If you have any tips for me during the cleanup/packing I would love to hear them!
Oh my goodness this looks terrible! Time for an update? Is everything resolved now? And where did the water come from; presumably through the cellar door rather than by seeping through the walls?
Billy recently posted…Comment on Contact Us by Will a basement conversion add value to my property?
There was a widespread sewage backup and flooding in our city.
oo very sad..buy a sump pump for future
These are all really important tips. After moving into our duplex, there was some leaking into the basement because of cracks in the foundation and we had to get them professionally repaired. We also have a sump pump because of living in an area with a high water table, it runs a lot during rainy weather.
Jeffery Mason recently posted…Why Hire with Pump Supplies?