A shooting involving neighbors on the street in front of my house spurred me to attend a newly formed neighborhood group last fall. Since then several severe storms have hit Seattle. The past few weeks of freezing temperatures, followed by yesterdays thaw resulted in 6″ of water in my basement. (I had just dried out from the 4″ I had at the end of December, which I wrote about here.)
Luckily my poor old dog woke me up at 4:30 this morning to go out. Before going out, I glanced down my stairwell and saw the lake, nay ocean, at the foot of the stairs. While out with the dog, in the quiet of that time of morning, I heard a waterfall coming from the vacant house behind me. Long story short, the landlords had turned off the heat, but not the water, and the pipes had burst.
This brings me to neighborhoods and involvement. Because I’m involved in my neighborhood group, I’d been nosy when men were breaking into the vacant house a few weeks ago. (I was pretty sure they weren’t burglars.) So I had met the landlord and had a phone number for him. I also had a phone number to call when my basement flooded so the sewer department could check for city drainage problems. I called the city, which had a crew at my house by 5:00 am. They were really nice men. They confirmed that my lines seemed fine, and that there weren’t any other sewage problems. They also called the water department to come out because they wanted me to be sure that my lines were okay.
I called the landlord, poor man, with the bad news about his property. His partner got in touch with me later in the morning and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to work amicably to fix any damage to my basement.
Never a natural “joiner” and not terribly social or outgoing, I’m happy to be connected to my community and I’m grateful for the knowledge they share.
