And The Flood Waters Came

What do you get when you mix a 2 year old, a wad of toilet paper, and a toilet that sticks? Well, if you ask my Allstate agent, it's about $6000 in claims.

Jordyn finished up on the potty and decided that she was going to wipe by herself, and not wait for either Mom or myself to come and help her. Unbeknownst to me, J loaded that sucker up with quite a bit of paper. Anyhow, we were about to go out so Meg and J could get their nails done for our trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas(!); we were leaving the following morning.

We get home, and I was on the phone with my dad in the car, so Meg and Jordyn jumped out while I finished up the call. All of a sudden I hear her screaming. So I jump out of the car to find water pouring out from under the terrace, and from the ceiling in the garage. I knew almost immediately what was the cause of the flood.

I run upstair and quickly and turned off the toilet, which at least stopped more water from coming out. Now that we stopped the water, the cleanup seemed unsurmountable. Thank god K. Hovnanian builds a pretty shitty house because the floor was tipped slighty toward the back of the house. This was a blessing in disguise because it saved both the living room and the basement. The basement would have been a hightmare, not to mention a very moist Dell workstation.

As soon as I could, I ran back outside and called my dad and had him come over right away to help. He then placed a call to a customer of ours in the restoration business, Gemini Restoration of Union, NJ. Let me tell you, these guys kicked ass. They showed up in no time flat, and proceded to remove the carpet from both bedrooms, and suck up all the water. They also took down a large section of the ceiling in the garage to let the balance of the water out.

If you are wondering where Jordyn is during all of this, Meg ran her up to Maritza's apartment for safe keeping. Thank God at the time that we were able to drop her there. Once my folks showed up, we ordered some pizza, and started to remove the good from the floor of each bedroom's closets. We had alot of soggy shoes, etc.

The cleanup went on until about midnight (?), and we brought J back to the condo. Um, remember why we went out in the 1st place? Yep, to add insult to injury, we had a livery car coming at 6AM to take us to Newark Airport. I kept reassuring Meg that we would still go away, and in fact we did. No sense in staying home watching the house dry. To bad the weather in the Bahamas sucked. Oh well, it still wasn't West New York.