Water, water everywhere....
....including my carpets.
Yep, that's right, my carpets. I hadn't long done my post from last night about the really heavy rain outside, when I put my foot down from its resting place on an old CPU casing....into about an inch of water.
In the space of half an hour, water had gotten in through the patio door in the living room, and the front door (having gotten into the building underneath the security door outside) and covered the entire flat!
A couple of minutes after I realised this, while I was trying to get through to the Council's emergency repair line, the water must have gotten into the extension plug my tv equipment is plugged into, and everything but the lights went off. I'm assuming (I haven't checked at this point) that the breaker for my power points got tripped - a good thing, or I'd have been dealing with a fire too. Thankfully the lighting's on a separate breaker, or I'd have been squelching through the water to fetch the torch out of the hall cupboard.
I had problems getting hold of my parents initially, as they'd gone to bed (it was almost ten pm at this point), so I had to go get my upstairs neighbour so I could get Rowan out of the flat. The poor love didn't want to wake up though - kept trying to burrow under the duvet despite my insistence that this was an emergency. It was our neighbour also calling his name that finally got through the sleepy haze. *chuckles* I did manage to get hold of Dad soon after, and Mam was able to come get him for me. I then had to having around for the council's emergency team to come inspect the damage - by this time the water had mostly receeded.
The problem was - as some of you may recall - that every time we get a really major rainfall, there's a good chance the drains outside the flat will overflow, and I get a small moat around my flat. But the water's never actually risen high enough to get inside - until now...
My insurers are sending someone around 'soon' to inspect everything, and a firm's been assigned to see if my carpets and furniture can be salvaged - my instincts say no. My carpets are completely sodden, and my bookcases are IKEA mdf which is bound to have taken in water. Rowan's Playstation's going to be a write-off, as it was on the carpet, and there's a chance my VCR is too - not sure about the TV, cable box or DVD player (god I hope not, it's multiregional!) as I don't know what damage might have been done to the plugs via the extension lead). I'm pretty sure I've also lost my laptop, as it was stood up against the wall behind the sofa since I was using the desktop last night.
The kitchen...I dunno. The floor can be washed, but the water will have gotten underneath the units. The vacuum cleaner's probably also a write-off, as are the contents of the fridge-freezer (which, thank god, I hadn't got much in, after that last incident with the freezer).
Most of Rowan's toys are perfectly safe, as I was storing them in plastic crates (I'll be getting more of those in, trust me!) though his bedroom furniture's a little dubious. As are mine. And I've a horrid feeling there were a couple of boxes of comics on my floor... :-(
And I don't want to think about my cupboard outside the flat.
I think we can safely conclude that my Friday ultimately blew hard, no?
So, for the time being, we're camping out at my parents' place; me, Rowan, the cat and the fish. Fun times, but I am grateful we had someplace we could go, or we'd have ended up in the council's 'doss house' for however long this takes to get sorted. I have to call the Council's repair line again first thing monday morning - which means time off work for me.
So...while I do have limited net access, thanks to my mam's laptop, I'm likely not going to be around for a while. Don't be too exciting, yeah? ;-)
Yep, that's right, my carpets. I hadn't long done my post from last night about the really heavy rain outside, when I put my foot down from its resting place on an old CPU casing....into about an inch of water.
In the space of half an hour, water had gotten in through the patio door in the living room, and the front door (having gotten into the building underneath the security door outside) and covered the entire flat!
A couple of minutes after I realised this, while I was trying to get through to the Council's emergency repair line, the water must have gotten into the extension plug my tv equipment is plugged into, and everything but the lights went off. I'm assuming (I haven't checked at this point) that the breaker for my power points got tripped - a good thing, or I'd have been dealing with a fire too. Thankfully the lighting's on a separate breaker, or I'd have been squelching through the water to fetch the torch out of the hall cupboard.
I had problems getting hold of my parents initially, as they'd gone to bed (it was almost ten pm at this point), so I had to go get my upstairs neighbour so I could get Rowan out of the flat. The poor love didn't want to wake up though - kept trying to burrow under the duvet despite my insistence that this was an emergency. It was our neighbour also calling his name that finally got through the sleepy haze. *chuckles* I did manage to get hold of Dad soon after, and Mam was able to come get him for me. I then had to having around for the council's emergency team to come inspect the damage - by this time the water had mostly receeded.
The problem was - as some of you may recall - that every time we get a really major rainfall, there's a good chance the drains outside the flat will overflow, and I get a small moat around my flat. But the water's never actually risen high enough to get inside - until now...
My insurers are sending someone around 'soon' to inspect everything, and a firm's been assigned to see if my carpets and furniture can be salvaged - my instincts say no. My carpets are completely sodden, and my bookcases are IKEA mdf which is bound to have taken in water. Rowan's Playstation's going to be a write-off, as it was on the carpet, and there's a chance my VCR is too - not sure about the TV, cable box or DVD player (god I hope not, it's multiregional!) as I don't know what damage might have been done to the plugs via the extension lead). I'm pretty sure I've also lost my laptop, as it was stood up against the wall behind the sofa since I was using the desktop last night.
The kitchen...I dunno. The floor can be washed, but the water will have gotten underneath the units. The vacuum cleaner's probably also a write-off, as are the contents of the fridge-freezer (which, thank god, I hadn't got much in, after that last incident with the freezer).
Most of Rowan's toys are perfectly safe, as I was storing them in plastic crates (I'll be getting more of those in, trust me!) though his bedroom furniture's a little dubious. As are mine. And I've a horrid feeling there were a couple of boxes of comics on my floor... :-(
And I don't want to think about my cupboard outside the flat.
I think we can safely conclude that my Friday ultimately blew hard, no?
So, for the time being, we're camping out at my parents' place; me, Rowan, the cat and the fish. Fun times, but I am grateful we had someplace we could go, or we'd have ended up in the council's 'doss house' for however long this takes to get sorted. I have to call the Council's repair line again first thing monday morning - which means time off work for me.
So...while I do have limited net access, thanks to my mam's laptop, I'm likely not going to be around for a while. Don't be too exciting, yeah? ;-)