Howdy, doody

Sorry it's been so long, but my last post was just the beginning of my fun for the week.

The mess did not, in fact, get cleaned up Monday, nor was the clog in the sewer lines found. And while I did not think I could find my bathroom in any worse shape than I had left it, I was very, very wrong. When I got home Monday night, I was greeted by standing water in my bathroom that had come out of the hole in the floor where my toilet had once been, sewage that had seeped onto the hallway carpet outside my bathroom and soggy carpet throughout the hallway and hallway closet and into both bedrooms and the living room area.

Goody.

The next morning, they came and sopped it up and got back to work. I again went to the Y to work out and shower. By the time I came back, they had finally cleared the backup and the guy was working to put my bathroom back together. I went to lunch and a movie ("Match Point" -- it was good, but a little long) and by the time I got back, my bathroom had been fixed and they had cleaned and sanitized the carpets.

So I now had use of running water and a toilet. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning and sanitizing everything in sight.

Unfortunately, when water floods your carpeting, it's not just the carpet that gets wet. So does the padding beneath the carpet. And when you're talking about sewer water, it smells. Bad.

So on Thursday the carpet guys came and replaced the hallway carpet, where it was stained. In the process, we noticed that the padding underneath the carpet in several other areas was quite wet. But replacing all of that carpet would have required recarpeting pretty much the entire apartment. I talked to the rental agency Friday and they had a guy come out and pull up the carpeting and cut out the wet padding, particularly in the hall closet, where it was soaked. I currently have a fan that's drying out the area underneath the carpeting in the soaked areas. It's been running for three days now. Once the area is dry, they'll replace the padding, I'll get the carpets cleaned again and hopefully the sewer smell will go away.

At any rate, I suspect I may be looking for a house sooner than I thought.