Tag: wet vac

Fresh Leak Hell

We have an appointment to have a new tankless water heater installed tomorrow morning. I still have a bucket under the leaky pipe in the current water heater and it’s kept the floor dry for a week now.

Or has it.

(insert ominous music here)

My wetvac is falling apart. Whole chunks of it have fallen off. It still works, and I could probably change the filter and all would be well, but now…

I emptied the drip bucket by stickin’ the wetvac hose into the bucket and sucking it all up. I’ve been doing that for a week now. Today, a few hours after emptying the bucket, I went downstairs for laundry reasons and saw water on the floor. WHAT THE HELL?

A little investigating has lead me to believe that the wetvac is actually leaking now. The water this time was next to the wetvac but a little down hill. I cleaned it up, knowing how goofy it is to use the source as it’s own fix, which clearly will have to be done again later tonight.

Oh well. I will be spending some time down there tonight to clean out the storage area where the folks will be working tomorrow and while I’m there I will empty the bucket and the wetvac and hopefully that will be the end of it. When the bucket gets emptied some time tomorrow, the water heater will have been replaced.

Fingers eternally crossed. I am so sick of having water issues in my cellar. It’s enough to make me want to move into a house that doesn’t have a basement. Houses in San Diego generally don’t have cellars, do they? If that’s the case, let’s go!

Wednesday News

Oh, it’s Wednesday again. When we dropped off my step son at his dorm last week, Wednesdays were the days I was most worried about in terms of being sad because he’s not around. Wednesdays are the days that the new Marvel TV show episodes hit Disney+. New Episode days (they used to be Fridays, but Disney changed it for some reason) have been spent in the living room eating burgers and fries for dinner while watching the latest. That dates all the way back to WandaVision, which seems like ages ago, but was really only a few months back.

On the ride home from Vermont I said to my wife, I’m not looking forward to Wednesdays when he’s not around for Marvel and Burgers night. Sad face. It’s okay though. I can be sad for me and thrilled for him at the same time. He’s starting day three of his University Academic Career today. Put simply: He’s the man.

Tonight is a parent sitting night for me so I will be staying over there. I’m super nervous. There are things happening over there that will hopefully resolve all of the out standing issues but I am scared shitless to write about them out of fear of something going wrong and all of it falling apart. I’ll keep my mouth shut for a while longer. Hopefully only a few days.

I just vacuumed up Lake Asshole. The dehumidifier is running and I’ll empty it as soon as it fills. We have another hurricane remnant on the way tomorrow. I haven’t checked the forecast yet today but as of yesterday the potential for tons of rain was very high. I need Lake Asshole to be as dry as possible before I leave tonight.

I keep forgetting to take the trash barrels in off the street. Trash pickup was yesterday afternoon and the barrels are still out there. Remind me to take care of that, will ya?

The potential for freak outs over the course of the rest of the week are very high. Just be warned. If I start losing my shit in the middle of the night while I’m at my parents’ house and have no one to talk to about it, I’m going to unload here.

Okay. Time to punch in to work. I have a bunch of meetings on the schedule today. Here’s hoping that distracts me from all the other shit for a while at least.

Happy September. Summer is officially over and Winter has officially begun. San Diego is calling me and I am not sure I can resist her for much longer.

Tropical Storm Remnant

It’s been raining all day. I went to the cellar an hour ago to check on the water status. Lake Asshole is confined to the storage area, which is where I think the water is coming in though I can’t tell exactly where, and it was not out in the cellar proper. It’s there, but the water level is low enough to downgrade Lake Asshole to Pond Asshole.

I emptied the dehumidifier (in the tub upstairs. I can do that with the little dehumidifier, but not with the huge-ish wetvac) and started vacuuming up some of the pond. I stopped when the wetvac reached full. I was in the middle of the work day so I let the dehumidifier run and figured I’d dump the wetvac outside during lunch.

That’s when the tropical storm remnant that drown the state of North Carolina hit for real. It is pouring like the end of the world out there. I’m positive the dehumidifier won’t be able to keep up, and I am going to get drenched when I empty the vacuum because irony is clearly dead.

The upside here is that I don’t go to my parents until tomorrow night, so I can keep up with this after work and all day tomorrow. I’m optimistic that it won’t get too bad. I’m also convinced that this whole water in the basement thing is just the universe kicking me when I’m down and trying to bring me to new “heights” of massive depression.

Fuck you, rain.

Saturday Morning

I slept in my own bed last night. Actually, I slept in A bed last night. My wife was with me. My step son was down the hall in his room, my cat was crawling all over us and purring like a purr machine.

We watched The Suicide Squad last night. It was awesome but too gory for Jen and she had to bail. Sorry sweetie. We then watched the episode of Parks and Rec where Letters to Cleo played the Unity Concert and Kay Hanley winked at whatshisname and Jen and Harry thought it was funny because me and Larry and Mike would have KILLED for a sliver of attention like that back in the 90’s. I bet Mike still has that water bottle that he took from the stage after a show at… The Paradise? Was it a solo show at The Lizard Lounge? I forget. I just remember that show at Merrimack College when she eviscerated the schmuck who was trying to slam dance (pick your spots, moron) and she stopped the show to tear him a new one and the three of us all simultaneously concluded that she is in fact the greatest front person in all of rock and roll past, present, and future.

Today I cleaned up the trash off the yard after the rodents knocked over the barrels again. Harry was nice enough to do it yesterday and all his hard work was ruined by a family of plague and rabbis infested squirrel pricks. Then I vacuumed up Lake Asshole in the cellar which has been forming for much longer than I ever let it form before, and it’s still smaller than it was regularly getting… so that’s good? I guess?

And while doing all of these chores I was just so friggin’ happy that I was doing them at my house for my family and not doing them at my parents house.

It is so good to be home.

Frustrating Home Owner Morning

You’ve seen the problem with the lawn mower. I saw a mouse hanging out under the tarp with the mower when I brought it out today. I’m going to assume it’s the cause of the hole in the gas tank.

That’s actually the second problem. The first is the wet vac. I think it’s going to need replacing soon. The filter is completely falling apart. It looks like it’s rotting off. Lovely.

The third problem just revealed itself. I have one spot in the front yard that the lawn mower can’t get to. It is a little rock garden spot. I use the weed-wacker to clear it. I got about 95% of the way through today when I ran out of thread. Gee, I hope I can find a new spool. Sonofabitch.

At least I got the entire front yard (minus the 5% of the rock garden) clear before the rain comes. Oh yeah, rain. The water in the cellar is still trickling in, but it’s not as bad as it was a couple of days ago. Two days of rain this weekend should bring it right back to where it was at its worst. Sonofabitch.