Double Trouble

Him: “Um… honey?”

Me: “Yes…”

Him: “It’s raining, in our living room.”Me: “Yeah, I know it’s raining… wait, what?”There was a huge sagging piece of drywall that looked like it would erupt at any moment right above our couch! Oh Marrone! (an Italian phrase for ‘oh my goodness’ – I use it all the time even though I’m not technically Italian, I just married one.)

It would drip… then a few seconds later, drip again. But even with those occasional drips, our couch was soaked. Frank broke the water bag in our ceiling so we wouldn’t be surprised with a huge gush… we now have a bucket collecting the drips.

My husband has decided we have a roof issue… so we get his father’s cousin out to take a look. When you’re Italian, everyone seems to be your cousin. Vic (the roofer cousin), decides we need a new roof. Something about flashing. We knew it was coming, we knew when we bought the house that the roof would probably need to be replaced in the next 5 years… and we’re coming up on being in the house five years next October. So, right on time. But it’s still a large $$$$ pill to swallow… ouch.

So, in the same day, I’m not kidding. My husband and I have this conversation:

Me: “Honey, I think you need to take a look at this,” yelling up from the basement.

Him: “One second, I’m in the middle of something.”

I come drudging upstairs with soaking wet socks and find him busy playing mafia wars… ah, again, the life of a wife married to an Italian.

Me: “honey, the basement is flooded!”

Him: “Hu?”

Me: “There is water coming in from all sides in the basement. What part of flooded do you not understand?”

Him: “Let me get the wet vac…”

And down he went to try to keep up with the never ending streams of water trickling to the low part of the basement. We had at least two inches of water converging under the stairs. This was not new to us. We had some water back in 2007 when we had a torrential down pour for several days in a row. We prepared and had anything touching the floor made of plastic. But still, if our sump pump went we were sunk!

We both decide it’s time to waterproof the basement. It’s an ideal place to make into a play room. Dominick is starting to get mobile and his toys are starting to multiply. I’d love to send him downstairs to play when he gets older. So, we’re going to get a French drain installed. Another, very hard $$$$ pill to swallow.

Okay, two huge house costs… is there a third? Usually things like this come in threes… deaths, capitol expenses… Should I do some sort of dance to avoid anything else catastrophic from happening to our house?

I don’t think I can handle one more thing.

Especially two in one day.