We still haven't heard from the claims adjuster. The heating/cooling guy is here now. The hot water heater guy was here this morning but when he was here it was impossible to reach the hot water heater (and at that point it appeared to be working). It is now accessible (or will be once the heating/cooling guy leaves) but in between these two events I discovered that our enormous chest freezer had floated during the flood, flipped on to its front side, had the door fall open. I spent the last hour or so fishing mushy packages of once frozen meat and containers of Jebra's home-made chili out of the mess and hauling it all up the stairs and outside. Where we are taking photographs for the insurance claim. There's no telling, at this point, what our insurance will or will not cover. The good news is that our home equity line of credit is still active and we can borrow against it.
I've been plugging away since 9 am and honestly it barely looks like we have removed anything. I started at the side of the basement with the pantry (and peeked inside -- lots of topsy turvy stuff in there too -- but no where to pull it out to look at, clean & disinfect or anything else. So I moved forward and retrieved the cat's dishes & litter pans, scooped up as much soggy litter as I could manage, and started collecting clothes from the various spots they fell. We own an incredible number of t-shirts, kilts, and work shirts. I think *everything* needs to be washed just to be on the safe side, whether or not it was immersed in water.
Speaking of washing clothes, the washer & dryer are currently nonfunctional. We bought them at Sears so I called them up to ask what to do. Or I should say I *tried* to ask -- first I got lost in voicemail hell, then I got to a person who would only repeat things from her script. All I wanted to know was if there is a typical scenario -- fix or replace -- and all she would say was we had to talk to our insurance claims adjuster. Which annoys me because if the proper solution is to replace we'll do that even if we have to foot the majority of the bill. After that round of frustration I called the local Maytag Repair service and learned that it may be possible to just dry out the machines, not replace them. Right now we have no room to disassemble the washer & dryer nor is there room for a fan to run, not without setting it on the still very wet floor (no flooding, just so saturated with water it is refusing to dry). And I expect there are many storage boxes and bins holding water as at least 75% of the ones I've laid hands on so far did.
I have yet to enter the downstairs toilet, which perhaps strangely is also the gateway to the husband's office, nor have I tried to clear the approach to the weight room and musical instrument storage area. Or done more than put one foot into the pantry.
I keep thinking about Tiny Houses and wishing we'd done a clear out long ago. Except I also keep looking at stuff and thinking "but I still like my CDs, DVDs, and million and a half t-shirts."
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