Yikes!!!

Well, we have had a really eventful week. Unfortunately, it was not the good kind of eventful. It started last Sunday with some water in our basement. We were really fortunate to find the leak only hours after it appeared to have started and were able to rescue our basement belongings before things got worse. Really only a corner of the basement was ruined and Travis spent the remainder of the night pulling up wet carpet and paneling. For the next couple of days we ran fans and a dehumidifier and things were looking dry, until Wednesday. By this time we had had 4.5 inches of rain in our area over the course of 5 days or so. Wednesday evening, we were just about to begin the process of moving some of our stuff back into the basement when we discovered we had more than 3 inches of water in the other half of the basement.....just great. Travis spent yet another 2 evenings pulling down paneling and getting all the water up. This time we couldn't tell where the water was coming from.

Here is where it gets pretty interesting. We called out a basement company to investigate what the issue was. They think we have a broken or clogged drain tile under the house. They also said that there looks like there have been a lot of prior leaks, floods and shoddy repairs done to the basement and there was evidence that this has been an ongoing problem for a long time. Our neighbors even informed us that the house had a major flood while it was still on the market and the owners had to call in trucks with special equipment to suck out all of the water. This would have been fine, however, the people the sold us the house did not disclose any of this! The box on the disclosure statement regarding basement water and/or foundation issues was checked "no". They were also the original owners, so they would have been here for ALL of it. Nice, huh? Seems strange that our inspector also missed some obvious signs.

Now we are stuck with thousands of dollars in basement repairs to install a new drain tile and sump pump. Needless to say we are really upset and will be contacting the previous owners to explain that we feel they are responsible for the cost. Who knows where this will go, but we have a sinking feeling we may need to get an attorney involved.

The good thing is that the basement was only partially finished, in the 70's, so seeing the carpet and old paneling go was not a heartbreaker. Travis spent the entire weekend getting everthing out. He pulled up every inch of carpet, removed all of the paneling and insulation. We also had to pull down the framed walls.

We have a couple more quotes to get this week on the repairs. Hopefully this weekend we can get everything fixed so that we won't have to worry about the water anymore.