Worst Case Scenario
April 18th, 2006Nope. I’m not talking about the White House.
I’m talking about our house.
I had a root canal scheduled for today, but the dentist took some more x-rays and decided to let me try to medicate for a bit to be certain. Because the crown that he just put in on the tooth that might need the root canal may only need a few more days of anti-inflammatories to calm down. But the crown and the resulting stories from the pain are for another day.
What we are going to talk about today is shit. Or the line that the shit travels in when it’s supposed to leave your house. Doctors call it the sewer line. Ours is jacked about sixty ways to your favorite deity (or non-deity).
Here’s the timeline:
Tuesday of last week: We take DORJ! to the airport last week and the next day I notice some weird debris in the shower. At first I just thought it might have been DORJ!-related, but upon closer inspection of the basement area, realize that it’s not DORJ! related in the least. It’s a drain problem. I figure, hey, maybe it’s the wet spring. Maybe it’s just that the city drains are overwhelmed. Sure. That’s what it is. It’s not my problem.
Friday of last week: Leta goes to visit Grandmommy while Heather and I clean up the basement in preparation for a minor facelift we’ve been planning for a couple of years. New carpet, some tile, maybe a new vanity in the basement bathroom… maybe some new tile in the shower… Nothing too crazy, but enough to make us feel like the basement is ours again after the tumultuous teen years of our former Congressman dog turned goth. We get it done and I’m feeling like a million dollars. Except for the crowned tooth. That is kicking my ass. I’m barely able to stand it. Heather tells me I need an attitude adjustment. I agree and apologize. We have a visit from a landscaping dude to estimate what it’s going to take to de-ghettofy our front yard, which is an embarrassment to both Heather and I.
Weekend: I’m in tooth-related pain most of the weekend. Heather loans me some Neurontin. Just a half-dosage knocks me so hard on my ass that I’m pretty much useless until Easter Sunday night when I finally mow the lawn, because anything I can do to help the yard will be appreciated. The Easter Bunny is very pro-lawn care. There is an egg dye issue with Leta’s pants.
Monday: Snow storm. Disgusting. Heather and I are working in the newly clean basement when we hear this crazy gurgle coming from the shower drain. I immediately go and flush the toilet to make sure the drains are clean. It won’t drain. I plunge it. I hear noises in the shower drain and sink. Shit. Shit.
Shit.
I then decide to call the city. Maybe it really is the wet spring. They send out a sewer guy. He’s here in fifteen minutes. Broadband providers could learn a few things about service from the sewer people. Easy. It’s a related industry.
Today: Feeling a little better. Weather breaking a bit. Leta’s being really awesome and funny and jokey and starting to draw 6’s. With gusto. The day unravels when I notice that the toilet in the basement won’t drain after I flush it. It wasn’t even poop. I promise. Same gurgly noise. Same terror-stricken red flags popping up in my head. Trying not to think about root canal scheduled for 4:00 pm.
3:12 pm: Call one rooter service. They won’t quote a price on clearing the drain. Schedule them post-root canal. Decide to get opinion of plumber that helped us with the kitchen. Call. He doesn’t do rooting of any kind. But he has a guy.
3:16 pm: Call the guy. He says he can be out in about twenty minutes. He also gives me a basic quote and tells me that 90% of jobs are done in an hour or less. And that 80% of his business is in the older parts of town. Where we live. I have a twinge at this point. Kind of like a character in The Shining.
3:39 pm: Dude arrives. Gives me the lowdown. Tells me it might be roots. Before I moved to San Francisco in 1998, I rented a duplex in an older part of town that had to be cabled, so I know what that’s about.
3:53 pm: I’m in the car trying to make my dentists appointment on time. Not gonna happen.
4:12 pm: Arrive at dentist. Wait a few minutes, consult. Put on iPod to drown out the anxiety and noise. Turn it back down 28 seconds later to talk to the dentist. Walk out root canal-free with a couple of prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory and a decongestant. Sweet.
4:40 pm: Call Heather to let her know I’m going to try to fill the prescriptions before I come home. She mentions that the guy might have to work overtime/call in reinforcements. Since it’s only been an hour, I’m not too worried. I tell her I’ll be home in a bit.
4:58 pm: Realize I’ve forgotten my wallet as i walk into the store. I left it home. Before I left for the dentist. Brain power, people. BRAIN power.
5:03 pm: Ask the pharmacist to quote me on the meds, even though I’ve forgotten my wallet. Not too bad.
5:16 pm: Arrive home. Greeted with nasty sewage smell. Go downstairs and see some nasty… stuff. Not shit, actually, just bad things coming out of the drain. Dude is telling me it’s going to take awhile. He hasn’t seen it this bad in a few jobs.
5:35 pm: Fill prescriptions.
5:54 pm: Arrive home, check in with the guy. Not looking good.
6:00 pm - 7:43 pm: Chaos. Dinner, friends stopping in, girls screaming, heavy machinery operating in basement. Leta goes to bed without a bath.
7:58 pm: Reinforcements arrive. Dude has a trailer with a lot of hose. Hose not initially used. Just this crazy attachment called “The Whip”.
8:32 pm: They ran the cable, with The Whip, to the street. Still no drain action. Time for the hose. It’s referred to as jetting it out. One guy on roof, one guy running the pump, me monitoring the basement. I’m watching the shower drain and toilet to make sure it doesn’t flood.
It floods. A little bit.
Diagnosis: There is a huge fan somewhere between our house and the street. The sewer line has likely “bellied”. In probably several places. Which is why the cable and Whip could get to the street, but the water wouldn’t drain. And the several thousand PSI water line that couldn’t clear the drains.
They have to come back tomorrow and dig. Both the guys were very somber when they told us we were looking at a worse case scenario.
Here’s what our downstairs bathroom looks like:
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES OF SHIT-LIKE SUBSTANCE (Heather wants everyone to know that it’s not actually what it looks like or what you think it is. It’s sludge… soil and debris. Dirt from the damaged line. Honest.). DO NOT CLICK LINKS IF YOU ARE OF WEAK CONSTITUTION.
It’s not going to be cheap.
UPDATE: Heather is crying. o
April 18th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
UGH! When I was a child, the whole family would come visit and stay with us for holidays. EVERY SINGLE TIME the downstairs bathroom would get clogged. Finally, after too many plumbers to count, we had to essentially get a lawn colostomy bag installed. It was this 3 inch diameter pipe plunged into the front yard that was used to clear out all the roots from the ginormous trees. It’s a lovely lawn item. Cuter than a garden gnome! Anyway, just wanted to say that I am glad I’m a renter and not a homeowner when I see these types of things.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:10 am
Wow - we had sewer/drain issues this weekend, too, but yours win. Grody.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:17 am
I am so sorry! This very same thing happened to me in my last house. After several late night calls (read: expensive!) finally getting some super special equipment (whatever it was, I think it was a fake metal detector and the dude went “beep” wherever he felt like), they decided to try digging up the tree next to the bathroom, saying it was roots.
Sure enough, I never had that lovely sludge again.
But now, now I am in a new old crappy house, and I live everyday in fear of that sludge. If the drains so much as gurgle I cringe.
You have my sympathy.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:18 am
Oh geez a lou, the smell must be fierce! And oh yeah, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots.
That’s why plumbers live in mansions you know.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Wow! That’s all I have to say about your whirlwind of a day. Those plumbing problems sound like they suck majorly. I really hope it works out okay… somehow! :-p
p.s. I should have listened to you. Those pics were pretty gross.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:14 am
bro. so…..not…….fun.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:15 am
My sympathies.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:32 am
My dad told me before we bought our home that water in unwanted places is a homeowner’s worst nightmare. I am sorry that you have this trouble! If it’s any comfort to you, I am in the middle of having TWO crowns put in - and motherofgod, I feel your pain in that realm.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:38 am
Talk about a confluence of the worst possible events: plumbing and dentistry. My sympathies.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Reminds me of ‘Meet the parents’. Does Chuck actually flush toilet after pooping?
April 19th, 2006 at 5:02 am
Oh yuck, that sucks.
Hopefully the worst case scenario is remedied today.
Glad to hear your root canal…WASN’T!
April 19th, 2006 at 5:59 am
I love having an old house, in a non cookie-cutter neigbourhood where there are trees and stuff, but reading stuff like this (and mopping water in my own basement makes me think the cookie-cutter house people kinda have a point. New houses don’t normally get leaky basement or sewage draining issues.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Sorry to hear about your troubles. At least the EPA doesn’t have to get involved. Last summer my oil tank leaked in my basement.
Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, they would just clean up the oil put in a tank and be done with it. Unfortunately, the only 8 square feet of my basement that was exposed to the dirt below our house was directly beneath our oil tank. Not only did I have to pay for a new tank, reclamation of the oil that was in the tank, disposal of the old tank, disposal of the sludge that was in the old tank, I aklso had to pay to have guys remove dirt and dispose of it, TWICE, till it met our local standards of 50 parts per million of ground contamination. It was a long hot wet American summer.
This too shall pass.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:36 am
*sigh* good luck.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:37 am
That is exactly the type of situation every homeowner fears. My husband and I shake in terror whenever we see a plumbing truck anywhere in the neighborhood - like we fear what they have may be contagious.
Hang in there - both of you.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:43 am
my shit story:
i was 12 years old and on summer vacation. we were having drain problems in our house and my mom told me the plumber was coming that day to do something in the basement and to call her at work and tell her what he says.
so, he arrives and goes down into our basement with this thing and i hear whirling noises .. then he comes back up and says to me, (a 12 yr old) “Ma’am, you can’t flush Kotex!” i am instantly mortified (and i’m not stupid - of COURSE you can’t flush a Kotex! duh!) so, i say .. “um… i don’t.” (i’m almost dead from the embarassment)”well, the kind with the STRINGS! don’t flush those!!” so, i had to call my mom and repeat this conversation for her with the friggin plumber standing there.
old houses, tree roots, and things with strings don’t go together i guess.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Dude & Dooce, that totally blows, sucks, bites and isn’t even remotely fun the way blowing, sucking & biting could be. Man. I feel the gut wrench on your behalf, being a homeowner is a joy and a bitch and anything costing big bucks is horrible. I’m so sorry. I hope you can get it all fixed (including your tooth) soon.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:12 am
You made the same fatal error we did.
We made home improvement plans. Everytime we make home improvement plans, something mechanical fails elsewhere in the house which takes from our beautification budget.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:46 am
In the years I’ve been pretending to be an adult the only constant about home ownership is that eventually everyone gets to have their sewer replaced.
My brother, who live in our basement during our “turn”, awoke after a big thunderstorm to find himself sleeping in the center of a lake of bobbing poop. Calls to the city and a sewer replacement specialist resulted in our front lawn being completely dug up and our just completed landscaping destroyed.
But we got it all replaced later that summer and it actually started to look good again. And then the neighbour had the same problem (we live in a semi-detached home). So they dug it up again…
Take heart John - at least you hadn’t done your landscaping. (You might want to see if the city has a program to replace the sewer - they pay the first 1,000 bucks here…)
April 19th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Dude! I’m soooo sorry. That just sucks.
Not that it’ll make you feel any better, but that sure reminds me of an episode of Dirty Jobs:
http://tinyurl.com/qgqbj
April 19th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Argh. Drain problems suck (actually, no. They don’t suck. THAT’S THE PROBLEM).
We went through similiar issues of constantly having shit and sludge backing up in our basement. We finally got on a scheduale of having it “mini-jetted” (due to our 80-year old clay pipes) every three months for about four years when we finally wised up and realized, Hey! Maybe we should get that pipe replaced!
It has been much better since. But I have to say potty training made me nervous as hell. Three-year olds tend to want to use WAY TOO MUCH toliet paper.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:00 am
I am so sorry. Wow. God, I want to send you guys a case of Billy Mays’ KABOOM! And some percodan for your tooth.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Much, much sympathy. We too live in an older home (c. 1900), and 6 months after we moved & shortly after the first kid was born, we began getting weird flooding. Only for us, what you saw in the toilet, shower and (ugh) washing machine was EXACTLY what you thought it was. I’m shuddering just thinking about it. Anyway, we called our local guys (ASAP Drains ROCK!)and they came to fix the problem. Turns out, some genius had attempted to flush a deodorant stick down the system. Here’s the scary part - it was not a brand of deodorant that either I or my husband used. So either we had deodorant gnomes, or the previous owners had done it. 6 months - ugh, ugh, ugh. Good luck - I feel your considerable pain.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:18 am
I had something similar happen, only I got lucky. I realized on New Year’s Eve that there was six inches of not-drained water pooled in my unfinished (and unused at the time) basement. Dad came over and tried to snake the drain - no luck. I had to call a plumber out on New Year’s Eve to try to clear the drain. The huge oak tree in my front yard had grown through the line. After two or three hours of snaking, the guy actually did clear the drain, but he said that, in twenty years, he’d *never* gotten that many roots out of a drain. I religiously put root killer down the pipes, but eventually I’ll be in the same boat.
On the upside, once you replace the sewer line, you should never have to worry about it again. Sewer lines and electrical panels are things old-home owners just KNOW they’re going to have to replace eventually. As someone pointed out, you might as well do it before Leta’s flushing entire rolls of TP at once.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Cripes…we had much the same trouble, but with the city’s part of the line, meaning they got to pay for it.
Well, on an upnote, here’s a piece of shit you won’t have to see for a while: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan! He announced his resignation.