Yeah, it's late. I should be in bed. But that's not so simple, see. I should also not be posting about this until I can speak to my husband...but I'm having a hard time calming down. And I'm not going to see him until after work tomorrow. I'll do my best to make sure he hears about this from me and doesn't get ambushed by information from somebody else. Give an anxious and exhausted Cancerian a break, will ya?
Technically, the window doesn't really leak. What happens (and this is one of the great joys of living in a house as old as ours) is that the gutters are overwhelmed by rainfall such as we've had this weekend, and the overflow splooshes in such a way that it lands inside the screen and windowsill of one of my bedroom windows. No other windows in the house experience this, to my everlasting relief. The poor window just cannot drain fast enough to keep up with the flow of water. So it then overflows into the house. It's not the window's fault. The poor window is very embarrassed, and worries all the time that I'll let on about its little problem to the other windows.
EDIT: I should have saved this earlier. It was much more clever, but some of it disappeared.
Anyway. The head of my bed is nestled against the wall, just underneath this window. You can see where this is going, can't you? I knew you could.
We rearrange in the bedroom a couple of times a year, put the bed on its frame, take it off, etc. Usually, we manage to avoid disaster with this window by virtue of Not Having the Bed There, or at least altering the angle of incidence of the water leaking in. Not so lucky this time.
It happened first on Saturday night, but it took me a while to notice it, since the leaky window is on
agrnmn's side of the bed. In the middle of the storms, I had to chase Marley J. Gangler off the bed -- she's terrified of thunderstorms -- and his pillows were wet. At first, I thought she'd done something Unforgiveable. But no. It was just water. Relief was quickly replaced by fresh horror. I opened up the window, got it to drain, put a towel down, and went back to sleep. Hey, it was the middle of the night. I wasn't exactly long on logic.
It happened again this afternoon. Tonight, I got the Clever Idea that I'd move the bed away from the window, just in case there were more storms. I figured I knew enough about physics to manage moving the king-sized mattress on my own, so I went to it.* Thought it would take just a few minutes before bed. Wrong. I suppose I should be glad I tried it, else I would not have uncovered The OMG Awful. Which is probably a good thing.
There's about a six-foot square area of the mattress that's soaked through. The box spring is soaked too. And the carpet under the whole thing is all squishy too. You can imagine how this distresses me. I'm mean...MY BED!
Thankfully, there wasn't a Bad Smell anywhere, though I can tell I'm going to need a lot of Febreze. And I have, like, three drops of it in the house. ::sobs:: Everything has been moved off the Wet Area and is propped up against the walls so it can get some air circulation and hopefully dry off faster. I'm worried that maybe I'm not supposed to stand mattresses and box springs on end, but I'm even more worried about it staying damp.
Looking on the bright side: I'm very thankful that I had the strength not only to move a king-sized mattress on my own, but that I had sufficient strength to move it WET. Across the room, even. Also, that my bedroom is relatively clutter-free, such that clearing space to stand everything up only took a few minutes. I'm grateful that LJ is here so I can vent a little -- enough to calm down, I hope -- and that the couch is pretty damn comfy for sleeping. Finally, I'm grateful that the miracle of email will enable me to notify my husband of these events before he arrives home tomorrow afternoon to discover them for himself.
::headdesk::
*There is an Anne McCaffrey series, in which there are dragons who can lift about as much as they think they can lift. That's sort of how it works for me. If I figure I can lift something, then I usually can. If I think I can't, then I can't. The actual mass of the object has very little to do with it, except when something is just so much bigger than me that I can't get a good grip on it.
UPDATE: Yes, I've finally been able to speak with
agrnmn. Things are Apparently Dry now. I can press down hard on the mattress and not feel any wetness, though the carpet is still damp. Fans and de-humidifier still hard at work. Donations of Lysol gratefully accepted as we move into Mildew Prevention Maneuvers. DamnDamp carpet will be dealt with simply by removing it. :) We were gonna take it out anyway. (shrug)
Technically, the window doesn't really leak. What happens (and this is one of the great joys of living in a house as old as ours) is that the gutters are overwhelmed by rainfall such as we've had this weekend, and the overflow splooshes in such a way that it lands inside the screen and windowsill of one of my bedroom windows. No other windows in the house experience this, to my everlasting relief. The poor window just cannot drain fast enough to keep up with the flow of water. So it then overflows into the house. It's not the window's fault. The poor window is very embarrassed, and worries all the time that I'll let on about its little problem to the other windows.
EDIT: I should have saved this earlier. It was much more clever, but some of it disappeared.
Anyway. The head of my bed is nestled against the wall, just underneath this window. You can see where this is going, can't you? I knew you could.
We rearrange in the bedroom a couple of times a year, put the bed on its frame, take it off, etc. Usually, we manage to avoid disaster with this window by virtue of Not Having the Bed There, or at least altering the angle of incidence of the water leaking in. Not so lucky this time.
It happened first on Saturday night, but it took me a while to notice it, since the leaky window is on
It happened again this afternoon. Tonight, I got the Clever Idea that I'd move the bed away from the window, just in case there were more storms. I figured I knew enough about physics to manage moving the king-sized mattress on my own, so I went to it.* Thought it would take just a few minutes before bed. Wrong. I suppose I should be glad I tried it, else I would not have uncovered The OMG Awful. Which is probably a good thing.
There's about a six-foot square area of the mattress that's soaked through. The box spring is soaked too. And the carpet under the whole thing is all squishy too. You can imagine how this distresses me. I'm mean...MY BED!
Thankfully, there wasn't a Bad Smell anywhere, though I can tell I'm going to need a lot of Febreze. And I have, like, three drops of it in the house. ::sobs:: Everything has been moved off the Wet Area and is propped up against the walls so it can get some air circulation and hopefully dry off faster. I'm worried that maybe I'm not supposed to stand mattresses and box springs on end, but I'm even more worried about it staying damp.
Looking on the bright side: I'm very thankful that I had the strength not only to move a king-sized mattress on my own, but that I had sufficient strength to move it WET. Across the room, even. Also, that my bedroom is relatively clutter-free, such that clearing space to stand everything up only took a few minutes. I'm grateful that LJ is here so I can vent a little -- enough to calm down, I hope -- and that the couch is pretty damn comfy for sleeping. Finally, I'm grateful that the miracle of email will enable me to notify my husband of these events before he arrives home tomorrow afternoon to discover them for himself.
::headdesk::
*There is an Anne McCaffrey series, in which there are dragons who can lift about as much as they think they can lift. That's sort of how it works for me. If I figure I can lift something, then I usually can. If I think I can't, then I can't. The actual mass of the object has very little to do with it, except when something is just so much bigger than me that I can't get a good grip on it.
UPDATE: Yes, I've finally been able to speak with
Re: water, water, water
Date: 2006-08-28 04:18 pm (UTC)