The House Strikes Again!

It seems that I have purchased a certifiable Money Pit! As you all know, back in January my drain line got clogged and water backed up into my basement and created one hell of a mess. The plumber warned me that he thought it was tree roots and that it would probably happen again and if it did, he would need to put a camera down the pipe to confirm his suspiciouns and take it from there. Sure enough his predictions came to fruition last Friday. My line was clogged and I found water in my basement again.

Since it was Friday and I knew if I called the plumber for an after hours call or a weekend call it would be more expensive, I held off till Monday. He came out and did the camera thing and sure enough the pipe was infested with tree roots and the roots were catching all the toilet paper going down my drain which was blocking more of the pipe and causeing the water to back up into my basement. *sigh* You know what that means? Cha-CHING! Cha-CHING!

The main drain line of the house needed to be dug up and replaced. So, Tuesday Ms. Utility came out and marked up all the lines, and wouldn't you know it - the damn cable line was installed smack-dab in the middle of my yard!! I had never seen anything like it. I thought all utility lines were suppose to run along the perimeter of the property! So, needless to say - the crew tried really hard to avoid cutting that line, but because of how that line laid across my yard the way it did there was no way that big back hoe was going to be able to avoid it! They almost made it too, but the line got snagged when they were back filling the trench. I called Comcast immediately and there was someone out here mid-morning fixing it. That's the fastest Comcast service call I have ever had!!

Now, I don't know if I've shared with you all how I am convinced that Mickey Mouse wired my house and that Goofy did the drywall, but apparently they were not the only Disney characters to have a hand in building my house.



The back hoe finally arrived around 11 AM and the crew started digging. My friend Stacey came over to help me keep my sanity during this event. The plumber told me that I didn't need to be home for them to work because all the work was outside and when they had finished laying the new pipe they would call me to come home to run the water and test the pipes. I don't know what, but something told me to stay home anyway, so I did. Anyhoo, getting back to the story, the main drain line in the basement is right against the wall between my side and my duplex neightbor's side, so you would think that the drain line would come out pretty much in the same general spot in the outside. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo, that would be too easy.

The guy started diggin at about 11:30 AM, Stacey took me out to lunch and we returned home about an hour later and they had a good 8' deep trench dug. About 1: 30 PM we hear the guy on the machine - "Dude there's no pipe here."

Other dude - "Wha'dya means there no pipe?"

1st dude - "I'm about 10 feet down and there's no pipe here. I don't wanna keep digging here if there's no pipe!"

OK, so now I'm starting to panick. That's when the guys started to come in and out of my house to verify wehre the pipe was in the basement to judge were the pipe sould be on the outside of my house. Slowyl they started more to the left. And a little more till about 4 feet later they finally hit the pipe!! But inorder to get to the joint and replace the line they were going to have to take up a block of my walkway. So cha-CHINK more money out the door because now I need to find someone to repair the walkway.

Whe they finally had the whole pipe exposed the plumber was topside standing next to me and he was shaking his head because it apparently didn't make any sense to him as to why this pipe was so far off the mark. That's when I said to him "And you thought I was crazy when I told you that Mickey Mouse and Goofy build my house" and he retorted rigt back "Yeah, and it looks like Donald Duck put in the pumbing. You certianly do have the Disney House!"

*insert a little comic relief*



So, here you see the trench. It's a good 15' down and 4' across. See all the lovely tree roots that are crisscrossing across the top of the yard. Lovely aren't they. Now, there were only 3 tree on the front between my and my neightbor's lot. I had SIX trees removed from my back yard, can you image what the root system must look like back there?!? Holy shit, I don't even want to think about it! And my sister thinks a little sweat equity and a tiller is all I need. HA!



When they had to dig inside my walkway and into the flower bed, they dug up my Hostas and got them out of the way. I laughed at that. Don't get me wrong, it was very nice of them to do that to save my planets, but my father has Hostas gallore at his house and he could bring me down a bow of them every fall.

HOLY DIRT BATMAN!!



So there is the damn pipe that has been such the problem and see that lovely oragney thing next too it? That's a freakin' tree root almost as wide as the pipe!!



The crew managed to back fill the hole that night and then someone came out the next day to do some hand grading. We are expecting rain over the next few days so I went ahead and spread some grass seed down. Now, Home Depot didn't have any straw to put down but they had this other stuff that claimed it was better then straw. So I went ahead about bought several bags of that and spread it all over the lawn. Hopefully grass will start growing!