Basement Watch 2010

As I have stated West lake Woebegone sits in a valley created when a large glacier melted. Many things in my community are named "Glacial" -- the hospital, the vet, the eye doctor, an excavator, a computer repair shop, the state park, etc, etc. If you live in town, chances are you deal with basement water to some extent or another because all the water runs down hill.

My mother offered to come over and move the things around in my basement, so they wouldn't get wet, but so far, so good. Even though it's been raining for 24 hours or so, it still looks pretty good down there. It would probably be a good idea to move things before it gets wet down there, but, I am a surprisingly optimistic person and don't want to expend unnecessary energy.

When we bought this house, we were very excited about the finished basement. Sure it was finished sometime in the 70s complete with built in LP cabinet, but we felt that the 70s carpet was a good sign it didn't get wet down there. Alas, our second spring in the house, it flooded so badly the 70s carpet was torn out and the basement became the large storage facility it is today. That year the ground had not yet thawed when it started to rain in torrents. Water came down the walls like one of those fancy faucets that looks like a waterfall. This was not fancy. Because he's older and a male or whatever, Brent usually takes the lead in home emergencies such as this, but as the evening wore on and I realized that holding a wet/dry vac to the wall was futile, I shut the vacuum off and said, "This is silly, Brent. Let's stop and deal with it when it's done."

There was a lake in our basement the next day. You would have thought that would have been the incentive I needed to really clean up down there.

Yes . . . well . . .