Did any of you know that we live on a houseboat? My husband for years has said how he would love to live on a houseboat and live a simple life. Well when we met he did not live on a houseboat, he was living in a nice house in the suburbs of Portland. Recently we moved and yet again, it was not to a houseboat. His desire still remains and he would love to fulfill this dream and to be honest, I’m not sure we ever will. Although, the closest we may come to that is probably right now. With all the rain the last week or so on top of the mass amount of snow we received, I think my husbands dream has finally come true.
Thanks to saveourhouseboats.com
We are living in a house that is floating on water, filled to the brim with water and yet I must say our house was not designed for this task.
Recently, before the snow hit the rain began. Portland is notorious for rain and to be honest, it’s never really bothered me. When the snow decided to flake down I thoroughly enjoyed the change as I grew up with a lot of snow and have missed it for quite a few years. The 2-3 day span of snow is just enough for me to enjoy it and wish it gone. When the snow vanished it literally vanished so quickly we didn’t have time to worry about driving in it. Unfortunately soon after the snow, the rain set in. We’ve been in a “storm” for the last few days and it will continue for another three days.
You maybe wondering why I am giving so many details on our weather forecast as I am not a weatherman. :) Well- as much as Californians are yearning for rain due to the drought they are in, I’m yearning for it to stop. I could probably ship enough water down to cover all California to help rid the drought from our house alone. Okay not really, but pretty close. Our house is a cold, murky swimming pool. Right below my feet lies a swamp that I would prefer to not know what all lays within this swamp. I know my toad is down there croaking happily, but apart from him- I’m not too sure. Our crawl space has turned into a large swimming pool.
My husband and I opened up the crawl space a couple of weeks ago to find about 6 inches of water below. After the snow hit and the rain began, we have roughly 8-10 inches of water now. It’s an eerie feeling to open up the closet floor in our bedroom to see this site. Sleeping above a flood is not necessarily a peaceful nights sleep for me.
When we purchased our house we purchased during peak season- SUMMER! No rain to be had, dry as a bone was our crawl space. Our first rainy season has proven to be beyond messy and expensive. We are in desperate need of a French drain. Desperate need my friends. Our yard is puddle after puddle looking entirely messy and ugly but that’s just the outside of the real problem.
Immediate action must take place. Our excitement to fix this problem has been beyond ecstatic that we have pushed it off for quite some time. ;) Well low-and-behold this wasn’t our only problem. The morning of my husbands birthday we woke up to our plumbing acting up. Every toilet, sink and bathtub decided they wanted to act up. They quit flushing, draining and doing their job. We spent some time buying harsh chemicals they say not to use because they ruin your pipes, well my friends we were desperate. We dumped anything and everything down these drains so that we could clean them out and use them to their full potential. Sadly, this didn’t work.
Yesterday I phoned our ‘on call’ drain guy and asked for immediate service. My husband had just showered in a muddy bath which I am unsure to this minute how he got cleaned; this defeated the purpose of showering. Anyway, they reached our house at 8:15 in the morning and didn’t leave until after 12pm. Was our problem fixed? NOPE!!! $3000 more dollars and it will be…!!! We decided we would try to take on the work ourselves and to try to figure out which task to tackle first; deciding seems to be impossible and expensive. Both jobs together would equal over $11k if we had the work done for us. Both are in desperate need of fixing and time is NOT on either of their sides, or shall I say OUR side.
So here we are a couple of days later and the rain still hasn’t stopped. I’ve worried our paint marker from the drain is going to wash away losing our $300 paint stain on the yard. Let me explain to you the importance of these two marks. The money we spend to have our plumber come out for 5 hours was simply to paint these two marks on our grass. By doing so it indicates the exact location of the pipe and the length of the problem which lays underground. These five hours spent to locate this section was quite expensive for shall we say, paint and it would be an utter shame if the paint washed away. It would probably be the death of me as of right now. ;)
Not sure if any of you know that before you dig anything in your yard, even though it’s YOUR yard, the state must be notified. This is state compliance and could be a massive fine if they found out after the fact. So thankfully our plumber advised me in this matter and this is the FIRST free thing we’ve encountered throughout our entire house problems the last 8 months. Needless to say, I was grateful! You can dial 811 and follow the prompts for your state, don’t miss dial and press 911. :) Basically this company notifies any and all utility companies forcing them to come to our property and survey the land. They mark with different color paints to help guide us where to avoid digging; gas, electrical, water, so on and so forth. We have 5 companies that need to come paint a canvas on top of our greenish grass. They are supposed to be here and finished by Friday at 8:30pm. Praying they abide by this so we can begin our family digging Saturday morning.
Moment of truth: Life simply hasn’t figured out that the ‘problems’ it’s dealt us, has been anything BUT cheap. Or maybe it’s something I’m supposed to acknowledge that never goes away. Either way, pray for sunshine this weekend as my husband and I decide to dig ditches together.
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