I failed in my plan to post daily updates about the moving in process. It was horrendous.
I rented a carpet cleaning machine on Tuesday and went through the process of moving all my furniture to one side of each room. Then I cleaned that half of the carpet and slept soundly all night. (Very tired) The next day I moved the furniture back to the "wet" side of each room and cleaned the other half. Again very tired.
Then I waited for the rooms to dry. What a nightmare! It has rained every day in Ottawa and the humidity outside is horrendous. I couldn't get the carpets to dry and the place was hot, humid and smelly. The first week here I purchased a little dehumidifier for the basement and have been running it in every room in the house since Wednesday. Every few hours I have to check it to empty the water bucket.
Then catastrophe .... the rain was so heavy that I had water leaking into the basement. Nothing was ruined but the drain is slightly higher than the level of the floor so I was mopping for hours. The dehumidifier is now back in the basement drying everything out.
The remainder of this week is vacation time and then I will resume the purge process and try to get rid of the rest of my unneeded belongings. That will ensure that the next carpet cleaning session will be easier. (In two or three years time - possibly longer.)
5 comments:
oh no!! a flood?! can you complain to the house inspector?!
how long did it take to ride to Quebec side of Ottawa?
The flood wasn't the inspector's fault. I think that it is just poor drainage around the foundation so I will have to do some home maintenance.
I do know that the gutters on my unit are full and the neighbours have said that when they have theirs done in the fall that I can piggy back on the service call. If the drain system isn't working properly then there might be water going places that it shouldn't. There is also some settlement around the perimeter of the foundation so I may need to look at changing the slope of the land by my condo or getting some longer drain extensions.
Alternatively, I could just wait until the rain passes and do nothing about it. It's a big pain in the ass factor though.
I haven't actually been to the Quebec side yet. I am waiting for Cycling Potato to show up so we can make the trek together. The ride is only a couple of kilometers though. Maybe 15 to 30 minutes at most, depending on the traffic lights.
I hope that the basement floor is lino, not carpet! Do you think that the truck mounted,
professional, and expensive, carpet cleaners leave less moisture in the carpets that the rental kind?
The basement is concrete and the room has dried out now. The commercial cleaners leave less moisture but they get cranky if you have your furniture in the room while they are cleaning. I didn't have much of a choice - either do it myself or don't do it.
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