As many of you may have also experienced, Ottawa had a cold spell over the weekend with temperatures getting down to -20 and -40 with the windchill added in. What comes about with weather that cold? Well, a lot of collectors' nightmare: burst water pipes!
Sunday afternoon, while watching tv in my living room, I heard a strange sound, and then what sounded like the shower running upstairs. Since a roommate had just gone upstairs, I thought that might be what was going on, but no, he wasn't taking a mid-afternoon shower. I just happened to look into the kitchen, and saw a puddle expanding on the floor!
Immediately, I called to my two roommates and we stood around confused, wondering what to do! (Hah, you probably thought I was going to say that we leapt into action!) Well, we figured that we should go turn off the water, so one of them went downstairs to do that. Another grabbed the mop as I started moving things on the floor that the water hadn't gotten to.
When I had a minute, I looked into the room next door - the den where I keep my card collection (among other things). OH, NO! Puddle coming from one corner of the room! I quickly grabbed some towels and threw them on the ground, soaking up the puddle, and forming a barrier that no water should get through.
I quickly went to work moving everything out of that corner of the room. I lost some card supplies, and a bunch of gaming notes for past campaigns of Pathfinder games that I've played, but I didn't see any ruined cards. Now, the cards nearest the water were traders and doubles and now they've been moved to other areas of the house so I don't know what is where. I guess I have to spend more time organizing and sorting. What fun!
My wallet card decided to look at some of the results.
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| Garage door - under the kitchen |
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| Overhang from den, beside kitchen, above front door |
As it turns out, this pipe in the wall between the kitchen and den was the only one that burst. However, we have many more holes throughout the house that they looked into that have yet to be repaired.
Of course, after our freezing weekend with the excitement of the burst pipe, yesterday Ottawa set a record for a single day snowfall since they started accurate recording dating back to the 1930s. We had somewhere in the neighbourhood of a foot and a half of snow yesterday.
Sorry, I didn't pull out the wallet card for this one. I just took this picture from my kitchen window to show my sister where my roommates parked their cars. The back car is angled with the back end out towards the street. Where's my car? At a grocery store a 15 minute walk (through the snow, uphill both ways!) away where I found a plowed lot.
Both roommates got out fine this morning, although we didn't have any doubts that the Jeep would get out.
Weather like this makes me want to get away, and I am leaving town tomorrow for the weekend. However, I'm not heading to a sunshine state, I'm off to Mansfield, MA for a gaming convention, TotalCon.
Does anyone know any good card stores in the Mansfield or Boston area, or along the highways between Syracuse and Boston? If so, leave a comment below. I'd like to see if they have any Browns cards that need a good home.
Wow! You should be thankful there was someone at home when the pipe decided to go, otherwise it could have been many times worse.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know. And I thought my collection was safe, not being in the basement. It didn't occur to me that it could be flooded out by being next to the kitchen. And thinking about it, it could even happen next to a bathroom upstairs.
DeleteI'm glad your collection for the most part is safe. Man, that was some cold temps. Stay warm!
ReplyDeleteA while back my oldest kid let the toilet upstairs overflow. My first indication that something was wrong was water pouring out of the vents in the basement ceiling. Luckily the water only reached the bathroom and laundry room downstairs instead of the other half of the basement where my cards/comics/computer are. It was an exciting time. I'm glad your losses weren't too bad.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved to Atlanta, my next door neighbor in my apartment complex had a Rottweiler that loved water. One morning, I woke up and found water all over my bathroom floor. Then I walked out and found that half my apartment was wet. Turns out the Rottweiler had figured out how to turn on the water in the shower, and also had gotten the stopper to go into the tub. 8 hours later, there was water everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThank God it wasn't from cold weather. That's why I got out of Wisconsin!
This cold and snow Is really starting to become a nuisance.The summers around these parts aren't nice enough to justify sticking out these polar blasts!Glad it wasn't as bad as you thought It would be.On the bright side,you got a nice Wallet Card post out of it ;)
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminds me of the Mac's I worked at in Bridgenorth.. For whatever reason, one of the water pipes ran along the front of the store completely uninsulated.. So during the winter that pipe would freeze.. Thankful it didn't burst especially since I worked midnights... lol
ReplyDeleteThankfully when we had our super freaking cold spell a couple winters ago, with the -30's and such, all of our pipes miraculously took it like a champ.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do recall that the same day I acquired my Ron Santo autographed card, I set it down on a table for a second and someone immediately spilled a cup of water on it. Thank the lord it was in a sleeve and a top loader which managed to keep the water out.
H2O is a card collector's worst nightmare!
Sooo.... is this a good time to mention it was 70 in Kansas today?
ReplyDelete