Disaster Clean-up 101

In order to understand 'Disaster Clean-up' you first have to create a good disaster! A good disaster sometimes takes days in the making, as it was at our house this past two weeks. For several days I kept smelling a bad odor in the kitchen area of the house. I examined everything to try and determine the source of the smell: food on the counter, the fridge, the garbage can, even the dog dishes. And then I examined them again, and again, and again over three or four days, never being able to determine the source of the foul odor. Finally, this past Monday I mentioned the smell to Dad. He too had been noticing the smell and couldn't find the source either. I headed over to Ontario to take care of some business and when I got back I found Dad in the basement. 'I've found the source of our problem.' he said. I went down the back stairs and walked into a playroom soaked with water. Kind of reminded me of that line from the very famous poem, 'Rhime of the Ancient Mariner' which goes like this 'Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!'. Both bedrooms, the playroom and the utility room were soaked with water. It was apparent that they had been in this state for several days! What a mess! My first thought was, 'This is not how I had planned my day! This is not how I had planned my week!' For sure the disaster was now created!

Thank God for family! My little brother Tommy and his wife Kim came right over. We immediately began the process of pulling up the carpet and pad from all the rooms. Kim and I did everything we could to save anything of value that was in the basement. You have to understand that the basement was completely full of all kinds of stuff, mostly Mom's stuff from her years as a tap dance teacher, or her collection of screws and nails, or horse stuff, or scraps of fabric, or furniture, or or or ad infinitum! We ended up filling two dumpsters full of stuff we didn't save or didn't want. I threw away five turntables for playing vinyl records. We kept one in case someone wants to listen to Englebert Humberdink, one of Mom's old records which of course she saved, and so did we in turn! It took us two days to pull out all of the carpet and start the drying out process.

The insurance company insisted that they send in a Disaster Clean-up Contractor. They cut the drywall out, four feet high, all through the bedrooms and closets. They then put in six fans and two humidifiers for two days which just roared with noise. I was kinda wishing that like Dad I could take out my hearing aids to go to bed at night. The equipment finally left here yesterday. Disaster Clean-up finished.

Now we begin the reconstruction part of the project. We have to deal with a completely new insurance adjustor from another company since Dad's insurance does this outsource thing for different parts of the project. Must say they have been pretty easy to work with so far. Keep you posted.