I'm officially homeless...really!

Just a note... until the flood of '09 is resolved at my house, this water and fish motif on my blog is staying!

Where do I even begin with this one...

It's been one heck of a week, and it's only Tuesday.

Sunday afternoon I went over to my mom and dads house for a little family reunion. My dad had a few of his siblings over and I went over to visit. When I left my house that afternoon, everything was fine and dandy. I came home about 4 hours later. My aunt Debra and cousin Ryan (both visiting for one night from Kansas) came with me to see my house.

As we walked in, I could hear a horrible noise. When I opened the door to the house I was met with a few inches if standing water, water shooting everywhere from the laundry room, smoke detectors going off, and one very wet and stressed out Tank.

(if you click on the picture below you can enlarge it and see the poor little doggy)

My aunt and I ran into the laundry room to turn off the water valve and my cousin went into the garage and got a big push broom to start pushing water out of the kitchen and into the garage. My aunt grabbed towels and rugs and started trying to shift some water too. The entire main floor was soaked! All of the carpeting, pergo, and bathroom vinyl.

I started to laugh... because I didn't know what else to do.

I called my mom and told her to send my dad over immediately.

Then I went downstairs.

I then started screaming and crying.

Water was dripping from the ceiling like a rainstorm. It was running down walls and through paint. I was standing in water up to the tops of my ankles. The more I went through the basement the worse it got. Water was even pooled in the light fixtures and was running out of them as well. And to make it worse, the electric smoke detector was full of water and had shorted out. It was making the most horrible loud sound. My uncle finally cut the cord with scissors to get it to stop squealing.

Talk about an unforeseen, giant, unwanted, unappreciated, big, fat mess! LONG story short, I had a lot of help that night. My mom and dad (of course) ran over. Also my poor aunt, uncle, and cousin spent their one night with my parents at my house trying to bail me out. They were amazing! My friend, Jamie, came to my rescue by bringing another shop vac and helping move stuff. Ken also came to help out while trying to keep me from emotionally cracking. He did a great job, but I think I've cracked.

The insurance company sent out a disaster crew. They worked until about 2:00 a.m. and then came back the next morning. Here are a few pictures from Sunday...

Where it all began...

See the little gold thing poking out of the hose on the right?
That's the culprit!

The beginnings of the stockpile of my belongings hanging out in the garage.

Ummm... that sheet rock on the ceiling was about to fall down!

Wet camera, foggy pictures. My uncle Dale mopping up water (sorry for the butt shot!)

Bye bye basement ceilings!

This is the downstairs basement bathroom. See the water on the walls? Nice.

(no love lost to lose that wallpaper, by the way)

This is the ceiling in the hallway in the basement. It was all bent about ready to cave in. It's gone now, but I took a picture before the clean up crew took it out.

Again, the ceiling in the basement. Water was dripping through the ceiling. It was like a rainstorm in the basement.

This picture is foggy because water kept dripping from the ceiling onto the camera. There is a good couple of inches of water in the floor here. Surprisingly, this is the only floor covering in the entire house that will not be taken out and replaced.

Yikes!!

This is my uncle Dale (my dads youngest brother) trying to get all of the water off of the bathroom floor.

My AMAZING dad who came over and started schlepping water while I cowered in the fetal position rocking back and forth crying... literally.

My mom insisted that we all eat hamburgers around 10 p.m. to keep up our "flood strength". This is Ken with his burger. He wasn't as happy about eating it as he looks in this picture. We were laughing about it and joking about eating french fries naked... ask my mom... it was her idea!!

My mom was obviously NOT happy about me taking this picture by the look on her face but I needed to find humor in the situation somehow. Her pants were seriously cracking me up!! She was WONDERFUL though. She was the one that rounded up shop vac's, fans, food and called the insurance company to get the ball rolling so I didn't have to. Yay mom!!

Yippee! The clean up crew arrived around 10:30 p.m. to get started.

This was the coolest thing! It sucks up the water out of the flooring.

What it looks like now.

What it looked like a few days ago.

The lovely condition of my bedroom currently.

What it looked like as of Sunday afternoon.

Another before picture.

My kitchen and dining area now.
Don't you just love the old vinyl flooring that was under the pergo?

My kitchen and dining area before the great flood.


And then to top it ALL off...

(a little more stress to my havoc-wrecked home)

American Fork City's pressurized irrigation tore into my front yard as the flood crew was cleaning up the next morning. Talk about a mess inside and out!!

Tank and I will be staying at my mom and dads until I can get back into my own home. I cannot believe that I am almost 35 and will be living with my parents!! Ha, ha. What else do you do? And they have both been WONDERFUL and supportive with all of this.

I also met with the insurance adjuster today. I'll be getting all new flooring throughout the entire house, top to bottom. The basement will also be getting a makeover with new paint as well. He told me when they're done it will look like a brand new house. I guess that's the silver lining in my gray cloud. I was wanting to completely redo the basement in a few years when I could afford it but it looks like it's going to be happening a little sooner than I had anticipated.

I'll be posting a lot more as the work progresses.

Each day it has looked more and more demolished than the day before.