The day after we got possession of the house we were down in the basement and noticed a pool of water near the floor drain. Concerned we called in the big guns (my dad and a carpenter friend) and started investigating where the water was coming from. We followed the water flow further and further south-east in the basement, demoing walls and floors as we went. Over the course of a few weekends, we finally trailed it back to the concrete block walls.
By this time our finished basement was no longer finished. All the items we had stored down there were relocated to the 2nd bedroom and there were piles of building material on our driveway. We were the ‘white trash’ neighbors whose house is an eyesore for the whole street.
All the demo work meant long days in the stifling hot basement. It meant finding mouse carcasses in the ceiling, cursing the crazy building techniques where someone had used nails and screws on every board and discovering that someone had applied tar to not only the interior walls but the floors as well. Most of all it meant stress and lots of time lost.
What we discovered was that there was water rushing in through our concrete block walls in a couple of locations. The water ran under the finished floor, out into the unfinished laundry room and into the floor drain. There was rotten wood, but luckily no mold.
And now we know: old people may seem sweet but do not trust them, they are evil. Don’t bother with a home inspector, they are not responsible for anything so what do they care if they do a thorough job? What you think is the worst that can go wrong can always get worse.
