Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Water Mess and Itchiness

What a mess! A couple days before Christmas my husband stepped in a spot of damp by our patio door, which is on one wall of our dining area.  We patted and felt around and did some sniffing (have the kitties been naughty?) then laid down towels and dried as best we could. We had had a LOT of rain the previous days, and seeing as how there was a lot of water in the tracks of the patio slider door, we figured it was rain water that had been too much at one time coming at the door. Not much to do for it at the time, we reckoned, and hoped it would dry out when the weather did.

It was a laying down of dry towels every several hours at that point up till Christmas, but by a day or two later, the smell of musky wetness coming from the carpet there worried me, so I persuaded my hubby to pull up the carpet and see what was going on there. Our do-it-yourself abilities are pretty amateur, so this wasn't something that came naturally to us, ripping our carpet out. But once the carpet was pulled away, it was obvious how much water had been sucked up by the padding and into the carpet.  The carpet seemed to be able to be dryed out okay, we've just put it in 4-5 years ago, but we needed to remove a 4 feet x 6 feet section of padding. Easy enough, we also removed the carpet tacking which had gotten soaked.  We set a fan to dry out the concrete, spraying it with Lysol to ensure against any mold growth. This was done during a few days between rainstorms, so we figured we'd keep it pulled back when the rain came last night, see if any more water came in. Guess what?  It did. 


Now, we're not talking major flooding here, but again, my hubby and I are amateurs when it comes to home repairs, so we're kind of at a loss of what to do about fixing this. From what we've been reading online, it could be as easy as caulking and weatherstripping the tracking (I don't see where this would go, frankly), or as complex as replacing flashing or some 'water pan?' on the outside. Since we live in a condo, I've suggested calling the homeowners' association, see if they can tell us if this is an exterior issue. We are really hesitant to do this, however, as they'd probably say it's the fault of the wood deck we've had outside for the past 25 years, or in the case of it being a problem with the door casing, it would be our responsiblity. Then they'd probably charge us to tell us this. (Don't care for our homeowner's association.)

Any suggestions, anyone?

I don't deal well with disrepair. I tend to be a bit controlling anyway, when it comes to clutter and stuff being left lying around when it should be put away, a constant point of contention between me and my teenagers.  I hate walking around furniture displaced, which is why we don't do a lot of big home improvements, I'm not comfortable with anything which can't be done in a relatively quick timeline and the least amount of disruption possible. I admit to this. So this makes me rather crazy, to have my small condo crippled like this. Yes, it's just one corner, but because half my diningroom is in pieces, my chairs are in the kitchen, being moved from one area to the other, as we need to access the stove, the laundry, the bathroom. We can't all eat sitting at the table, so we've been eating in the livingroom.....there's reasons I don't encourage this.

So now I'm seriously itchy to get my house in order. Christmas was wonderful, and I usually enjoy having the decorations up till January 2nd, which is traditionally when my mom took hers down, and my goal for cleansing the holiday decor as well. I've been known to take things down on New Year's Day, if I need to go to work the following day, so I don't have to wait till the weekend to remove the decorations. Since I've been climbing over pulled up carpet and rearranging chairs for the past few days, I'm starting to eyeball the holiday items. Let's face it, I usually get rather itchy right after presents are unwrapped, and my livingroom, even with the wrapping paper tossed and boxes stacked, still looks like assorted heaps of clutter, with presents left carelessly on couches and floor.

I am trying to hold out till at least Saturday before I start putting stuff away, but frankly, with as much stuff being jumbled on what was put out so lovingly for the holiday, I don't think anyone will miss it if I start cleaning off a few surfaces now.  And it might scatch a few itches, at least for now.

5 comments:

Luncheons at the Junction said...

Thanks for taking time to stop by my blog and comment when you have so much going on there! Of course I had heard on the news that California had record rainfall - so sorry you were affected by it.I wish you all the best in the New Year.

crazymotheringchick said...

Oh, bummer. Hope you can figure out what to do about this..... charge you for the call? Again, what is the benefit of a HOA? Yeesh....

Thoughtfully Blended Hearts said...

You have to figure out how the water is getting there...through the door frame or is it coming up from the foundation???? If it is just accumulation outside of the door and seeping in you have to figure out a way to reroute the water...if it is on dirt (you can use a ditch to reroute it...if it has concrete then you have another kind of problem. Any reputable contractor can probably tell you what is happening. I'd start with a good building store asking about someone to help...just get some recommendations.... Since I'm in TN I don't know how things work in Calif. we don't have unions or anything like that...but we do still have some "fly by Night" people who will rip you off... I would scrub the concrete down with bleach before I put any carpet down...(FYI...I used to have a flooring business and also worked with my Dad who was a flooring contractor...(try googling the problem also)
Wishing you a lot of luck...

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