The bathroom flood: No, my life is not perfect

Here’s a story with a PSA.

Photo by Phil Goodwin on Unsplash

Lest you think my life is all peaches and cream, I will tell you what happened on Monday. This is a complete aside from my normal writing, which I usually keep to good news, but I blog to inform and help (maybe give you a smile?), and there is one important bit I learned that day that I want to share in the event this should happen to you.

Here’s what happened:

I woke up and thought it would be a usual day, expecting to have coffee, play with Sheba, clean the house, go to Pure Barre, do some writing and reading, and other daily activities. I walked into the bathroom and started to put a Pacifica cleansing mask on my face (this is all true).

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught something quickly move on the floor behind the toilet, and by way of instinct, I stepped on it. 

It was a fast-moving spider (sorry, Andrea and other arachnid lovers). Usually, I catch and release them outside, knowing of course, they’ll probably be back in the next day. On Monday, I didn’t. It was early, and I was taken by surprise.

I grabbed a Lysol wipe to dispose of this and in cleaning the floor, accidentally knocked into the inlet pipe below the toilet. A fine spray of water followed. I thought to turn the on-off valve in front of it to stop the water flow into the tank, but the knob would not budge. I tried harder, and suddenly the rubber tubing connecting the inlet pipe to the tank completely dislodged. Oh no. The water pressure in this house must be very good because the water was shooting out so hard, I really had no idea what to do…In seconds, it was on the walls, the shower, in every direction because the opening is on top.

I grabbed some towels and tried wrapping it to slow it down. Good luck with that. No go. A bucket wouldn’t help, because as I said, the opening is on top. This was like a garden hose at full force.

I ran to the kitchen, grabbed my phone, and texted Julian: “Major flood in bathroom. How do I shut water?” No answer. I called. No answer. Okay, we’re not married anymore, so maybe he was busy. The time was 7:50 a.m. (Later noted on phone text.)

By the time I got back, the bathroom floor had about an inch of water on it, and it was flowing out into the bedroom. Fast. I had to get help. With the mask still on my face and looking like I had just stepped out of the shower, I threw a bathrobe on and ran across the street to my neighbors. These are good people (and friends), so the husband, Tim, said, “Give me a minute.”

I ran back to the bathroom, and started using blankets to stop the flow into the bedroom. The water had flowed about 5 feet in each direction, and the carpeting was sucking a lot up, and was already quite saturated. Tim came running in, tried with his wrench to turn the valve, no luck.

“Where’s the water come into the house?”

That was the question of the day. This is the important part. I HAD NO IDEA.

I knew it had to be in the crawl space/basement, but where? I wasn’t even sure what it looked like.

“Crawl space?” I said. Showed him the way downstairs and in a couple minutes, the emergency was over. The water stopped gushing. 

I was able to take a breath and inventory of the situation. The carpeting in hall and bedroom was saturated in every direction. Walls in bathroom dripping, but fortunately almost all surfaces tiled, so not bad. Water still deep, though.

“That was crazy,” Tim said, shaking his head. “Do you have a shop vac?” 

He graciously never mentioned my face mask, but it’s possible there wasn’t much of it left on.

On that note, I will give my PSA: If you don’t know the location of that cutoff switch/lever to the house water intake, go find out. It might not save a leak, but it could prevent a crazy morning and days of water cleanup.

However, that is not quite end of story. Of course, the shop vac is another mystery. We own one, but it lies somewhere in the shed (which is on the far end of a one-acre lot).

But I do keep a BucketHead gadget from Home Depot in the laundry room.

A repairman once told me about it, in regard to another problem I had relating to the washing machine, one that pales in comparison to this flood, so hardly worth mentioning. Except to say, this is a handy item. Definitely recommend. This is a small version of a shop vac that is more manageable, and I pulled it out and started sucking up the standing water in the bathroom. 

Tim left, returning with his shop vac, but that is one heavy piece of equipment to drag around. He offered to help, but honestly, he was as soaked as I was, and I said thanks, you have already saved the day, and I can handle this from here on out. (Wishful thinking.) 

I can’t say exactly what time Julian turned up, but maybe an hour or so later. Time had become a vague notion at this point.

He took his shoes off and started to walk into the bedroom, only to be surprised by the saturation of the carpet. It was actually squishy, and he backed out for shoes. I used the shop vac, and he called a plumber. 

Surprisingly, they arrived quickly, even though the emergency had passed. The bathroom floor was dry enough, and they replaced the rubber tubing and something inside the tank. They were there approximately 30 minutes. They charge $250 an hour, plus materials.

By 11 a.m., they had already left. As you see in photo below, my daughter was inadvertently on the first text I sent Julian. (I was a bit frantic.) The explanation that Tim shut off water was a later text, but came up under the same 7:50 time stamp. This all happened very quickly.

The emoji was my daughter’s response at 11:08. 

That was Day 1.

Tuesday, Day 2.

I woke up to find a good size puddle under the recent repair. I had to head out, but Julian called the plumbers, and he was at the house when the younger of the two came by and did a quick adjustment.

I wasn’t exactly confident at this point, so I put a small bucket under it when I got home.

We started to rip up the carpet. There was no hope for it. Turned the portable dehumidifier on, and it helped a lot to dry the wood floor.

Wednesday, Day 3.

Bucket is filling with water. Note that I had stopped using this bathroom, just to be on the safe side, but that made no difference.

Plumbers return and this time they swapped out the entire pipe and fittings. Another half hour.

Why this repair was only partially made the first time, I don’t know.  Clearly, the whole thing was rusted and old.

The next photo shows the final repair. 

The image below of older plumbing is what the parts looked like before, and this is actually a picture not of the one that broke, but the one in second bathroom. Yup. Identical. I think it’s time to get that one fixed before there is a repeat performance. 

But if that happens, NOW I KNOW: Forget the towels, blankets, and phone calls. First run straight to the basement and cut the water.