A Personal Story of having to deal with flooding in the basement.

1. Water Damage in the Basement
I have two part-time jobs. I work in an office 17 hours a week and I spend 15 or so hours a week doing
housework and providing childcare for a family of 5 in exchange for room and board. In short, I’m a livein nanny with a day job. It’s a pretty sweet gig, especially as when the family leaves town, I have the
house to myself. I got particularly lucky this summer, if you can call it ‘luck.’ Let me explain.
Six Weeks by Myself
This summer the family’s two week
vacation to the Pacific Northwest got
extended by a month when the best friend
of the mother was involved in a serious
accident on the east coast, sending the
best friend and all seven of her children
into the hospital. The family then packed
their kids into the minivan and drove from
Washington State across I90 to the Finger
Lakes area of New York State. Trusting the
care of her 5 children to her parents, this
mother devoted much of her unexpected
visit driving to helping her friend with post-surgery recovery and the split care of the kids in ICU and the
kids who were not badly injured and sent home.
Not an ideal situation to be sure, but I welcomed the solitude. My responsibilities included making sure
the chickens got fed and the house didn’t burn down. When the family finally arrived home a few days
before school was scheduled to begin, all was well… until we went down to the basement.
Water Damage
The house I live in is a 3 story home with a full basement,
so 4 floors total. I live on the second floor of the house and
rarely have needed to go to the basement. A couple of
days after their return home, the mother and I are cleaning
the basement and noticed that the carpet in one corner
was damp and the baseboards were starting to look
discolored.
Upon closer inspection we found significant water damage
along a large portion of the wall in the basement and mold
was present along the carpet edge and in the baseboard
wood. We investigated the exterior side of the wall and

2. found that a sprinkler head had been turned to face the house, so for six weeks, water was being
sprayed onto the home every night at 11 pm.
Repair
The insurance company was called and a claim was filed. The mom then cut into the walls and began to
remove the bulk of the damaged wall. We set a fan up to dry as much of the space as possible and we’re
now waiting for the insurance adjuster to file his report so we can move forward with the mold
remediation and repairs.
Depending on the level of remediation and repairs
required, we may have to call a construction
company to help with the work. Luckily there are a
variety of fantastic general contractors in the Salt
Lake area. I’m glad we were able to catch this
problem before it got worse and we may still run
into other unforeseen problems but we’ll get it
figured out and fixed by ourselves or with the help
of one of the general contractors in Salt Lake.
Photo Credit: RawheaD Rex, Mircea, JD Hancock