Some days are just icky ....

We took off this morning for the Carlsbad house to fix the 3 toilets.  Not a pleasant thought ... but I took lots of reading material and some hand sewing with me since I don't do plumbing!  I was prepared for Doug to do a lot of mumbling as he replaced the innards of the 3 toilets.  Plumbing is not his favorite activity!

Doug's mom and dad had two houses - one in Palm Desert and one in Carlsbad - for many years.  The Carlsbad house was "her" house and the Palm Desert house was "his" house.  Since Mom's death 3 years ago, the Carlsbad house has been mostly empty.  We visit at least once a month - more often in the summer when we are trying to avoid the summer desert heat.  Dad has been reluctant to either rent out the house or sell it.  He just doesn't seem to want to take any action!

So, today we paid the price for his reluctance to have someone in the house full time.  We arrived at the house about midday.  As soon as the garage door went up, I realized that there was water in the garage.  The lower level of the house was totally flooded.  Apparently, a pipe broke in the laundry room and water poured into the first floor - who knows how long it had been flowing?

We spent the next several hours on the phone with the insurance company, flood specialists, etc.  We moved all the furniture out of the first floor.  The flood specialists will extract the water, remove the carpet, and start some sort of process with fans and dehumidifiers to get the moisture out of the house.  Then the big work begins.  They need to remove the baseboards, some of the wallboard where there has been moisture damage, insulation where moisture exists, etc., etc., etc.  This is not a pretty picture!

We'll never know when the leak started.  Thankfully, we chose this day to visit the house!  I think this process will go on for weeks if not months.  The good news is that the house will be recarpeted which it desperately needs.  The bad news is that we'll be in charge of all this work.  Oh, well.  This is what families are for, right?  You do what you have to do ....