Neighbour's Junkpile

That’s our neighbour’s house up there… all the contents of their basement. Last week every second house around our block had piles like that, including us.

So now things are mostly cleaned up, but all our basements are completely bare. Carpets stripped out, two to four feet of drywall cut away from every wall. Lots of concrete. It’s like a wasteland down there.

I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned in case one of you fine folk ever have to go through something like this. Here goes:

1. Check your insurance. Make sure you’re covered for all types of floods (and fire, and everything else). If you need to put an extra rider on to cover something extra, like coverage for flooding from sewage water, DO IT! The peace of mind is worth the extra ten bucks a month. And yes, I agree that an extra rider shouldn’t be necessary, but alas it is.

2. Don’t step in the water. I did, and in retrospect it was foolish. I was well aware that there might be a current flowing through the water, but I wanted to save my precious belongings. Not worth risking my life. First, call the electric company and get them to turn off the power. Then call your insurance company, and let them get someone in there to clean up the mess.

My next door neighbour, a retired electrician, came downstairs and saw a foot of water in his basement. His reaction? He went back to bed. The next morning he went out and played a round of golf… and got a hole in one. It was the third hole in one he’d scored in his life. When he finally got around to cleaning up his belongings, he found a scorecard on which he’d recorded his first ever hole in one. True story.

3. In our case the water was storm water mixed with sewage. But apparently even just storm water can contain harmful bacteria. Either way you’ll want to stay out of the water and let the professionals handle the mess.

4. Don’t move anything upstairs in an effort to save it. We did that, and all we succeeded in doing was contaminating the upstairs.

5. Call the insurance company right away. We waited a couple of hours and by then we were at the bottom of the list, and had to wait until ten o’clock the following night before someone showed up to begin cleaning up the mess.

6. Pick a house at the top of a hill somewhere.

Sigh.