A SILENT FLOOD

    On Sunday October 5, I walked barefoot into the kitchen and felt the small rug in front of the sink wet under my feet.  I noticed other signs of water on the kitchen floor. I sent an urgent note to my friend, Jose, a competent, helpful carpenter-electrician-builder.

     He kindly came to my home Sunday afternoon and declared emergency status!  “This is serious, Jane.” I had called Jose two weeks before to examine the threshold strip between my hall and kitchen, which was coming loose. It was dangerous in that I or my friends could trip on it and fall. He promised  at that time to come with a wood threshold strip which he could hammer solidly into the flooring.  That loose strip proved to be another clue to the silent flood  which was flowing, drop by drop from the plastic piping to the ice-maker of my fridge into the floor of my home: kitchen and adjacent halls.

      Jose was not as concerned about the destructive water as he was about the accumulated mold which is dangerous to our health. He and his team ripped out my kitchen: flooring, sink, cabinets, and moved dishwasher, stove, fridge, washer and dryer to the back deck!  I sat in chaos on my back porch…while six blowing machines roared as they dried the soaking-wet wood.

      I sat on the back porch, surrounded by in the chaos, for a week while the driers roared. I slept at my friend Karen’s home and struggled with State Farm Insurance agents who told me I had no claim to insurance because the lead was slow, not sudden. Facing this huge cost and weeks of reconstruction, I got more and more

stressed and depressed. 

       Saturday morning I awoke at Karen’s home and announced: "I am going home to clean what remains of my house within an inch of its life." I did that, and now sit, by the fire, in my living room on a Sunday afternoon after a visit and a lunch treat from a good friend.  I am newly aware that the silent flood saved my life from disease caused by the accumulating mold. I await the next weeks of reconstruction and the joy of a beautiful, and safe, new kitchen! What can I say but: Praise and Thanks!