"The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came up..."

Remember the little song from Sunday School??? Well...for me, they now have a more literal interpretation.

As you've maybe read in the last few posts the rainy season is upon us. Hmmm....yes, UPON us.

Do you remember my roof???? They call it Asbestos here and yes...it's Asbestos. It also isn't great regarding the sealing factor. With the rains sometimes coming down in TORRENTS not only is it LOUD, but we have seen some puddles. Actually I'm surprised there aren't more as it seems just from looking up that this stuff wouldn't hold out much. A call to the landlord results in a fairly quick resolution for us with silicone and a ladder. This is an ongoing process and just the other day as I was laying down w/ Natty and looking up, I can see where streams of water have come down the walls. Hmmm...those are new...

Alan usually takes care of the small ones but sometimes there are a few that are impossible to reach with our setup and frankly, I don't want him to climb up there and walk around on it because I don't want to have to pick him up off the floor then drive him to some hospital. Picky aren't I?

So that's the 'Rains Came Down" part; here comes the flooding....

Two days ago Alan was wandering around the house in the middle of the night and managed to step in a puddle. Normally, we would grab a bowl and set it down to catch the rest but as we hadn't had rain that day, a few alarms went off in his head. Lights on and a listening ear to the wall revealed a little RIVER running UP from the tiled floor and out a corner of the wall. He got me up (did I mention this was 1:15 AM???) and we started sopping up the lake that was gently reaching into Riley's room and the living room. While I was on 'soak up duty', he went looking for the water main to the house. After a few walk arounds he found it and shut off the water. That helped but it still took about 30 minutes to sop it all up. Off to bed we went with me thinking through Spanish vocabulary to try and explain what had happened. He could've done it but was going to be working somewhere else starting early. A phone call (YES! I did explain it right!) and the plans were in the works for them to come and take a look. I was turning on the water bits at a time to wash dishes and flush toilets and things looked fine 'till about 11am. OH MAN!! Now it was coming out of the walls too!! YIKES. After that the rest of my day consisted of sopping up water, running back and forth to the main for quick turn ons when absolutely necessary, and watching for more places it was trying to soak through. At one point it was running into the living room, Riley's room and mine.

PRAISE GOD nothing was ruined; heck nothing was touched by the water that won't dry and be fine later. We have friends who had a flood a few weeks ago and they had inches throughout their WHOLE HOUSE and of course, were out of town. I shouldn't complain one little bit.

The landlords showed up about 7pm to look at it and thankfully, or not, I had a lake for them to see. Nothing like visual aids in my opinion. :) After Alan talked and showed them where he figured the problem was, the work began. I was figuring they would come back the next day to take care of it all at once but they wanted to get it fixed for us if they could. So hammering, drilling, chiseling, and prying began. After checking under several tiles, and digging out sand underneath they finally found it and looks like it's been there brewing for a while. One of the landlords kept saying to me over and over again, "mala suerte" (bad luck). At that point, I was sort of laughing about it. He said they've never had this much trouble with the house in all their years of renting it. Oops.

By 9pm he had found it, fixed the leak, and found that the sealer worked so promised to come back the next day to fix the holes and put back tiles. He's here now putting the bathroom and part of the hallway back together. I'll be cleaning dust up for a while I think.

Did I mention that they are planning on replacing the floor in the WHOLE HOUSE in a couple of weeks???? This could've been so much worse. Or more complicated. Or expensive. Or lots of things.

Silver linings abound. We are getting really well aquainted with the worker (same on for everything so far) and the local landlords of the house. Plus, deep cleaning seems to be on my regular 'to do' list these days.

I'm thankful for water and people who help us keep it in the right places.

Faith...