The Man drove up to the mountain house on Sunday, just to see how it was enjoying the fine winter weather. He left later than he had planned, so it was dark when he got to the house. A strange, gushing sound greeted him when he walked inside. He turned on the lights and saw water stains creeping up the dining room walls. The house was very, very cold, even though we'd left the furnace on when we closed the house up for the winter, to keep the pipes from freezing.
And then, when he walked into the bathroom, he saw it: the toilet had exploded.
The toilet had exploded because the heat had stopped running and the pipes had burst. The bathroom and dining room were flooded. The horrid red, indoor-outdoor carpet that covers the first floor of the house was a sponge.
It sounds like bad news, doesn't it?
Well, it was bad news for the Man on Sunday night. He had to sleep in a cold, wet house with an exploded toilet. He put in calls to the heating people and the insurance people and hoped that they'd call back on Monday, even though it was a federal holiday. He ran the space heater in the bedroom to knock the chill off, but turned it off when it was time to go to sleep. He kept waking up all night to worry about things.
Oh, but there's good news. The Man crawled under the house Monday morning and got the heat back on. Folks returned his calls. A great guy named Richard from Restorations, Inc., came out and cranked up his wet/dry vac. The Man gave Richard the key to the house and came home.
That's what I love about the mountains. You can give a complete stranger a key to your house without a second thought.
Insurance will probably pay for most, if not all of the damage. More good news: We get a new toilet! The old one was pretty cruddy. Even better news: that horrible indoor-outdoor carpet will finally get pulled up, and if the floors don't buckle, we can refinish them. This has been on our to-do list for awhile, and now the insurance company will pay for it. Whee!
So, really, there are a lot of silver linings in this particular cloud. Maybe best of all, I get to go around saying, "Our toilet exploded!"
And that, my friends, is fun.
Venerable Paisios Velichkovsky
3 hours ago
10 comments:
A good story! Something like this happened to neighbors of ours long ago who were on vacation. Our daughter was watering their plants outside, and heard water gushing inside, so we got in through a window and found the toilet spraying water all over the bathroom, and the flood moving toward the rest of the house. Now as I hear your story, it makes me wonder if we should turn off the water to the toilets when we go away....
Uh oh. Aren't you glad you weren't there when it happened! And what a lot of silver linings to your very wet cloud.
Get your mileage out of that statement...in fact, get some extra for me. Pipes never freeze where I am, so I'll probably never be able to say that!
Sounds like something off CSI - Grissom and the Exploding Toilet!!
SO glad your insurance is there to pay up - and hoping you end up with much nicer fixtures and fittings. And God Bless Richard, Man of the Mountains!! x
Particularly fun when you aren't in the place where to toilet has exploded, but stand to reap the benefits later!!
Do you like to consider what is happening in the mountains when you aren't there? I like the image of your little mountain home, so still, so cold, empty and waiting for your busy little family to return. And now with a brand new fixture and some fine new flooring!
Houses in the mountains are a lot like children. You wonder what they're up to while you're not together. Even when there's a little mischief, there's always a way to find a bit about which you can smile. All in all, mountain houses and children are good things to have in our lives.
I've been thinking about your mountain house. It sounds so appealing....and then I remember that I live in the mountains. Perhaps I need a beach house?!
Well all that money you pay into insurance ought to pay out sometime. Sounds messy, but I'm happy that you'll get a new toilet and floor out of the deal.
Life's full of surprises, isn't it?
Jody
Yes, yes, yes! ALWAYS shut off water at the main and drain pipes when you leave a house vacant for any period of time with no one checking on it. This is a given here in New England (we fill with antifreeze too over the winter), and given the unpredictable way the climate is changing, it's got to be best practice for you too now. I've felt so bad for all the people in the South who've had to experience real cold recently with no experience dealing with it.
Enjoy your postings very much..have you bookmarked...couldn't find your followers!!
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