My Surprise for Today

I sat down in my chair today just after finishing lunch, planning to check email, facebook, etc for a few minutes while Will was taking a break, when this catches my eye...

(oops, I took the picture after I removed all the books)

 

I'm thinking, "what in the world??" Haven't noticed this before!

The wood is cracking apart, the front piece is warped, and there's mold!

 

Upon closer inspection, I also find this...

 

more water stains, mildew and mold

 

and this...

 

warped bottom portion of shelf

 

and this on the inside bottom shelves of the entertainment center...

 

oh. my. goodness.

 

I'm sure you have figured out what's going on here. Water damage. How long it's been here, I haven't a clue. Long enough to do this much damage, yes. But this is my entertainment center in my living room. I see this piece of furniture every day, and today is the first time I noticed this.

 

I will say this, my allergen list runs the gamut and mold and mildew are at the top of the list! I have been suffering from sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose, stuffy nose, major throat-irritating drainage and killer sinus headaches for the past two weeks. And I've been blaming it on the pollen :).

 

After we emptied every shelf of this...

 

 

and this...

 

We were able to move the entertainment center away from the wall to find this...

 

mold in the imprints in the carpet

 

This was so nasty. The pictures don't even do it justice.

 

Two pictures of the same shot...

 

In this one, I just changed the settings on my camera to produce a different result so you can better see what the mold looks like in the carpet.

 

And the wall behind the furniture...

mold and cracked paint

more mold (and lots of dust on the wall and on top of the baseboard, but hey, that entertainment center is very big, it fills up almost the whole wall, and it's waaayy too heavy to move. So when I vacuum, I reach the hose attachment as far behind it as I can, but I can only reach so far...)

 

So I called my insurance agent, and he called the home office, and they called

SERVPRO

You know the one... "Like it never even happened."

 

 

And they came to my house, and with their very cool moisture detection gadgets, found exactly how far away from the wall the water extended, ripped out the carpet, drilled holes in the wall and set up these two high-powered fans and a dehumidifier.

 

These machines have to run 24 hours for 2 to 3 days to dry up all the moisture.

They also sprayed something that is supposed to kill the mold. And I just thought the mold smell was strong.

 

Same set-up in the kids' bathroom, where the water damage originated, thanks to a faulty PVC pipe in the wall behind the enclosed bathtub.

 

So, the SERVPRO guys will be coming to my house for the next few days to get the water dried up, and to get rid of the mold.

 

And of course, that's just the beginning of the fun. After they are finished, the plumber can come tear out the wall to replace the leaky pipe. Then, the sheet rock guy can come repair the wall. And then we can paint it (but hey, I was kinda thinking about painting this spring anyway). And then the carpet guy can come install new carpet.

 

Oh, and by the way, in my effort to be more "frugal" around here, just this past December, I convinced Mike that we should raise our insurance deductible so that we could have a smaller yearly premium. After all, we've been in this house for over 11 years and have never had to file an insurance claim for anything. Isn't that how it always happens? :)