What I Did on My Summer Vacation - Part 1

Remember all those times when you were a kid and your father pumped up the old inflatable raft so you could go boating in the street after a rainstorm?  Me neither.  I remember getting stuck in a blizzard in Erie, Pennsylvania when I was young where we lost my sister in a snowdrift at the motel.  It was only a for a few minutes and we eventually found her, slightly colder and slightly less likely to trust her parents when they said the snow was safe to walk on, but alive and reasonably well disposed.  I also remember taking my diaper off and running through rose bushes when I was very young - that sort of thing leaves a mark both physical and mental - but I don't remember having a lake in my street.

I do, however, have a memory of being a father pumping up the inflatable boat so my kids could paddle around after a rainstorm after a lake appeared where there had never been one previously.  It is totally cool to see the looks of joy on the faces of the neighborhood kids as they come splashing toward the boat through what is most likely a mixture of rainwater and sewage backup.  There was definitely a diaper or two floating in it, but that could have been just from the fact that it was garbage day and all the cans on the block had been knocked over by the flood.  In any case, there was a significant amount of water on the ground and a significant amount of fun being had by all the neighbor kids.

They all took turns in the boat, paddling around, splashing each other, and, in general, having a blast.  

The adults were a little less thrilled due to the fact that there was a lake where the street should have been.  Sure, it was cool to watch the kids cavorting around without a care in the world, but being adults we are often aware of things that are not nearly as fun as boating in the street. Typically when there is that much water around it has to go somewhere and, as we and a few of our neighbors found out, basements are high on the list of places water wants to be.

At first our basement seemed to be fine.  A few wet spots on the carpet were all we had to worry about while our neighbors across the street ended up with several inches of standing water in their basements.  As the day wore on though, we found that our floor drain was seeping water at a fairly prodigious rate leaving us with the complimentary suck jobs of carpet removal and water vacuuming.

We decided on a strategy to try and save as much of the carpet as we could and simply cut out the carpet and pad that were completely soaked, leaving the merely damp to sit overnight and attempt to dry.  After a few hours of constant water vacuuming the inflow subsided to a trickle and we decided that we had definitely had enough of our basement for the day.  After setting up some fans we migrated upstairs to rest and hope for the best. 

The next morning, however, we found that the damp carpet was still damp and other bits of the floor had increased its moisture content to above acceptable levels.  New wet spots had appeared on the remaining carpet and formerly wet areas had become decidedly squishy.  We started to do a bit of water vacuuming to get the majority of the water up and then let the fans run a bit longer and hope for dryness over the next few days.

Like those of Cubs fans in September (or, in a few memorable seasons, June), our hopes were dashed when, in the following days, our carpet became musty and nasty and, in general, disagreeable to be around.  It was decided that an excision of the remaining carpet was called for so Jen and I worked together to move furniture and other little items around the basement so we could cut and roll up the remainder of our carpeting.  It turns out that this was a wise choice as the padding under the carpet was completely soaked and, like a colicky two year old with diarrhea that hasn't slept for the past three nights, totally needed to be thrown out.  Not that I would ACTUALLY throw away a colicky two year old with diarrhea that hasn't slept for the past three nights, but if you are a parent it is not a completely foreign notion so the analogy stands.  Besides, I don't want to press backspace right now so it is staying.  

Even after cutting the carpet and padding, moving the padding was like carrying a sponge.  A giant, six foot long, bendy, wet sponge.  The carpeting wasn't much better, but at least it had a little resistance to it which made carrying it up the stairs a little more enjoyable.  Well, if not enjoyable, at least less of a suck job.  

In the process of pulling up the carpet we discovered that the tack strips (those wicked little pieces of wood which hold the carpet down near the walls) had completely turned black and could be scraped up with just a little bit of effort.  This prompted Jen to ask, "Is that mold?"

Which prompted me to reply, "I don't know."

Despite its honesty, this reply didn't seem to satisfy her curiosity so she said something to the effect of, "Aren't you a biologist?  Isn't this something you should know about?  I mean, you can't fix a car or build a wall or kill a deer with a hunting knife should you need to provide meat for your family in the event of a total, catastrophic power failure in which society crumbles and we are forced to live off our wiles in the wilderness, so shouldn't you at least be able to apply what you do know to this situation and come up with a little knowledge to drop on me?"

I might have paraphrased and exaggerated that last statement a bit, but I don't think by much.

So, with a practiced eye and a keen sense that what I said next mattered a great deal, I said, "I think it could be.  It could also just be wet wood.  If we have mold spores around, which we probably do given the fact that they are literally everywhere, then any damp surface could harbor mold growth.  So - maybe?"

This didn't have the desired calming effect on my lovely bride, so we began checking around the place a bit for signs of mold.  Considering the fact that the house has most likely been leaking since we bought it 10 years ago it was a good bet that we would find something fairly quickly, and after moving a piece of paneling to see the drywall we did, indeed, discover a largeish patch of blackish mold.  It was, in hindsight, sort of pretty, all black and shiny with a few white patches thrown in for good measure.  Without proper mold testing it is impossible to tell the species, but it could have been the dreaded "Black Mold" (Stachybotrys) which is THE hot thing in real estate nowadays. 

Upon finding this relatively large patch of mold we began to collectively freak right out.  I immediately started looking into how to clean it up and deal with the problem and, given that the internet is totally fast, I also immediately found out that the EPA recommends that a homeowner without respiratory issues or immune problems can safely handle a mold remediation of up to 10 square feet on their own.  Anything larger requires professional remediation.  The section that we had discovered was easily bigger than and I have asthma with an allergy to mold.  This meant bringing in the pros.     

This is where the story gets good, partly because I get to have a decent nervous breakdown and partly because we learned a lot over the coming weeks, but I think it is a good place to stop for now.