02 September 2012

Most already heard about our "little" sewage issue. Here is the scoop:

Friday morning I was cleaning up the basement when I heard Phillip and Everett playing in water near the toy cabinet. Took me a moment to do a double-take, "what? water?" I check the toilet, bathtub, then the drain under the wall cabinets. It was totally backed up and brackish, foul water bubbling up and onto the carpet. I quickly gathered the kids and went upstairs. Called all the plumbers in town and Justin. Day and Night plumbing pulled the lucky short stick first. Justin was glad to come home and help me clean up the carpet. Mostly he manned the carpet cleaner then waited as long as possible for the plumbers. They showed up around 1 pm. First thing they did was push sewer water back up the drain by flushing all the toilets in the house. (gross). It backed up in moments. They got out their 120 ft heavy duty rooter pipe snake. The best entry proved to be the roof drain vent. The rooter ran for about 3 hours straight. It was horribly loud and shook the south side of the house. We ended up with rootered drains and a drain snake stuck in the pipes. Mr plumber finally told me the snake was stuck out near the edge of our lawn by the alley. We walked the alley and noticed the recently disturbed dirt. The day before a company laid new fiber optic cable and a box in our alley. Soon management was on the scene, a bit later a construction company with a backhoe showed up. Quicker than quick the workers dug a 10 deep, 6 foot long trench. Phillip about went out of his little mind watching a backhoe in action...in HIS backyard. He kept yelling: "thumbs, awesome, cool, dude, ah-mazing!!!" The first trench revealed that the snake was stuck 10-15 feet away. So another trench was dug parallel to our alley fence. At the 8-9 foot mark we dimly saw our crushed clay pipe and a gleaming orange fiber optic cable laying right over the pipe. The pipe snake was freed soon after. The plumbers did a quick patch on the broken pipes (they had to smash the one in our yard to find the snake), covered the holes with plywood, and left.

Right around dinner time Everett decided to catch the flu. He made quite the mess in his table chair and the area around. I filled up the sink and bathed him, leaving the barfy water plugged up. He threw up 8 more times. By the end of the evening most of the sinks and tubs were filled with gross bathing water. Poor kid. To top it all off, Phillip yanked off the kitchen sink faucet! We went to bed early. I just have to laugh, because crying would be much too depressing. It was a rather exciting day, but one I'd rather not have again for a couple decades. The city, phone company (who laid the cables), plumbers, and construction company will be back on Tuesday to make repairs. In the meantime we get to try and keep the kids out of deep trenches and off the backhoe. Fun!