On Tuesday all hell broke loose. I was at work and I get a phone call from a frantic Jon saying that there is hot water spraying all over our kitchen from the washing machine hook-up pipes. I told him to call the landlord and try to get it turned off. I ended up leaving work and going down there for moral support, to help clean, pack, and do what ever else I could do. By the time I got there Jon had got the water reduced to a drip and most of the water in our kitchen swept out the back door. Shortly after I got there and Jon gave me the tour of the wetness a man from a restoration company came and we told him what had happened and he looked at the valve and said that the valve was faulty and it wasn't any fault of ours that we now had a big mess and a bunch of damage. After he looked around a guy from our property management company got there and he was not a happy camper, but he said that the valve was bad and would need to be replaced. Luckily not too much of our stuff was damaged. Our kitchen table and a little antique suitecase got the worst of it. We had some boxes of laundry detergent that were on the floor that are now one solid chunk of detergent each and a few things that got a bit warped because of all the humidity and moisture in the air, but it could have been a lot worse. The previous night I had gone down the the apartment to grab most of our food and take it up to my parents, so things like our cereal and food stuff that would have not been good to have in extreme heat and humidity was already out of the kitchen. I had to toss a bag of sugar that had turned into a 3 pound sugar cube and some graham crackers that we had left so Danny could have something to snack on when we were down there, but again it could have been much worse. Also Jon might not have even gone down to the apartment until later if the girl who is going to be living there starting in September hadn't called and asked if she could bring her husband over to show him the place since he hadn't seen it yet. My mom got off work early and came over and helped me pack up the kitchen while Danny was at my parents house with Jon sleeping. We asked Ashley if she could help watch Danny for us so that we could try to get the rest of our stuff packed and out. She came and picked him up and Danny and Dean hung out while Carrie helped Jon and I do more packing. We took a load up to Jon's parents in the truck and unloaded it in the barn where we heard from Jon's dad that if we had tried to come up the next day we wouldn't have been able to drive down the lane because there was going to be a sidewalk put in starting the next day.
The next day we heard more from our insurance lady about how the mangement company was trying to say that the flooding was our fault, but the guy from the restoration company said that wasn't true and he was going to be dealing with the owner of property and her insurance to repair any damage. It was irritating to find out that eventhough when we were there the guy from the property management company said that the valve was bad, but then tried to still say it was our fault so they wouldn't be responsible to the damage. We sent an email with pictures of our damaged stuff to Jared from the restoration company and he was going to give that to the home owner's insurance so that they can replace it or something. We were too burned out from our scramble of the previous day to go down to work at the apartment, so we spent the evening trying to put away some of the stuff we brought up to my parents.
On Thursday Jon and Karen were planning on going down to the apartment to do some serious cleaning because Jon had scheduled our check-out for Monday the 27th. When they got there they found out that our apartment had been converted to a dry sauna and there were machines pumping out hot air at 122 degrees. Jon freaked out to say the least. From what I got out of him they took the AC unit in to Danny's room and Karen cleaned while he called people to figure out what was going on and when the apartment would not be so blasted hot. Sadly he found out that those things are supposed to be going for a couple days to make sure that everything is all dry. Jon got pretty upset with our landlord and I'm glad I didn't hear it becuase I don't think I would have been too happy at what he said. That evening went down and grabbed a few things from the apartment and dug up the garden. I experienced the heat in the house and I would have not been happy trying to work in there for more than a few minutes. After we got back to my parents and put Danny to bed we transplanted the tomato and peppers to my parents garden. I am really hoping that they do ok with being dug up and driven across town and then replanted. I guess we will see.
Jon rescheduled our check-out to the 31st, so hopefully we can get the place cleaned before then. I'm hoping that the heat-blowing-drying machines are turned off by Saturday so we can try to work on cleaning then.
This whole ordeal with the water mess has just been a nightmare. If it wasn't my life I would not even believe some of the things that have been going on with our management and how unhelpful they have been through all of this. I just can't wait to be done with this, but I'm afraid that we will still be dealing with the aftermath of this even after we have done our final check-out.
I am trying really hard to forgive and not be angry and I think this is something that I need to learn right now with this situation and other things that are going on right now. I keep trying to think of Christ's teachings:
3 Nephi 12:44
But behold I say unto you, love your aenemies, bless them that curse you, do bgood to them that hate you, and cpray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you;
Dang this is a hard thing to do, but I keep thinking that this is what I need to practice and learn right now. Maybe I'll add some pictures or the video clip Jon took of the apartment after we got the water stopped.
