Just walked into our storeroom...where I discovered WATER all over the floor! Right beneath the furnace and humidifier.

We just had the heating company here about two weeks ago because the humidifier had pink ooze-ish goo all over it and coming out of the drain hose. Tech cleaned it all up and killed the pink stuff with bleach. Replaced the old filter with a new filter. (I should go look and see if we have any more pink ectoplasm in there)

Now I have water all over the floor in there...and on my two vacuum cleaners, all over the bottom of a particleboard bookcase and on a portable hard drive and my Dances With Wolves special box set of videotapes.

Water + Particle Board = sagging shelves and MOLD (eventually)

Thank goodness my yarn and fabric stashes that were in the room were in nice waterproof Rubbermaid totes. (fabric I can wash, but yarn...not so much) The water just ran under my plastic totes instead of into them. I think I might have to buy stock in Rubbermaid.

I'm actually glad the water hit the bookcase, because if it had gone the other direction it would have gone into the closet under the stairs where I keep my Xmas stuff (most of which is still out in the family room...yay for being lazy putting stuff away) and it also could have ended up ruining our brand new carpet in the hall. So, I'm kind of glad to lose my Dances With Wolves videotape set and a hard drive rather than a bunch of brand new carpeting.

Gonna wait till things dry to see if the vacuum cleaners are still usable. Kind of hoping they're not. I need an excuse to buy a Dyson.

Why is it always at midnight when I have to do an emergency heating/plumbing call to get things fixed? Good thing they were here just two weeks ago "fixing" the humidifier...and we have the fancypants service contracts with them. No charge to have them come out at midnight. (yay!) If it's going to break, breaking within two weeks of them trying to fix it is a good time for it to break...under warranty!

Did you get this taken care of Erin? Sounds like an awful mess

luckily we had bought all the service contracts that the heating company has. (they also have a plumbing department too...got a service contract for that too!)

I called and the tech came out at 1230 am and cleaned out the massive blockage of pink goo (the tech called it "snot") that was in the drain pipe that goes from the humidifier to the floor drain. He helped me put our industrial fan out to try to dry out the bookcases. (I couldnt lift the fan, which I could do two months ago. MS is screwing up my back now)

He said that the water had wicked up the bookcases and that we should probably toss them. (yay! I just needed the excuse!)

I lost the external hard drive that we'd put in the bottom of the bookcase when my dad gave his brother's desk to my cousin. It was the only place for it. It's soggy and I dont feel like trying to put it in a bucket of rice to see if I can dry it out. Dont think there was anything on it anyways. I'm going to quietly toss the 3 cookbooks that were on that same shelf. (my mom freaked when I told her I was going to toss them, but she doesnt cook, she wont miss them)

There are about 100+ vinyl albums on the bookcase next to that. Not sure if they got wet. I'm going to tell my sister that she can take them and sell them (and keep the money) if she wants to.

My dad has about 200+ leather bound Louis L'Amour books in one of the bookcases. Those did NOT get wet that I can tell. As soon as I get my Xmas tree out of the way in the family room, I'm going to start to move the books to a table out there until we can buy (or build in) some bookcases for either the family room or my dad's office room. (that room is going to become a library/spare bedroom)

My sister and b-in-law had complained about us keeping those books where they are. I agree with them, but with the MS, just havent had the energy to deal with it. My dad thought they were fine where they were. He's now been convinced that they need to be moved. I'm going to see if my sister will help move the books when we get the bookcase. I'm thinking I can slowly get them out of the storeroom by moving them one at a time, but when we put them away in the new bookcase(s), my sister can organize them for us. (and keep the vinyl albums for doing the work for me)

Then we'll have more room in the storeroom without those bookcases. I cant wait!

I'm just glad that when the water from the humidifier got all over a bunch of our stuff in there, that MY STUFF was in nice secure plastic Rubbermaid totes. My yarn and fabric is nice and dry and clean.

There's something to be said for rubbermaid totes! All in all it sounds like even though the initial 'shock' of seeing things...ermm...soggy? wet? drowned? dewy? was quite daunting, this could turn out to be a good thing that happened. You're getting some things sorted you wanted to sort, tossing some things you wanted to eliminate, and getting help doing some things that need doing.

only thing I missed was the excuse for the Dyson you may have to invent that one

I've loved Rubbermaid totes ever since I started building my yarn stash back in the early 90s. (been crocheting since I was 6, but didnt get into stashing yarn till I started making afghans) I have big totes, little totes, medium totes. Even have the file box totes for my crochet patterns. I think I'll go buy some new ones for the Xmas tree collection that I have right now. (my ornaments are in the special ornament Rubbermaid totes) My big tree has it's own huge Rubbermaid. My fabric Xmas bags live in a Rubbermaid file box.

I havent tried the vacuums since they got soggy. One of them (a Kenmore) was already kind of broken. (workman in the house a few years ago vacuumed up a couple of drill bits with it and did something to it.) The spinny part that has the brushes on it doesnt spin and we've replaced the rubber bandy thing that's supposed to make it spin a couple of times.

The Oreck that we got at Costco about a year or two ago has been a nice vacuum. Light enough for me to use even when having a wobbly flare. (dropped some dry cereal in my room)

Our cleaning lady tho has a Dyson. One of the older models, and I really like how it does the floor. I want the Dyson Ball vacuum tho. I probably need to go look and see how heavy the Dyson Ball is before running out and getting it. (just thought of that...what if it's heavy?)

I'm giving the Oreck a couple of more days before I plug it in and see if it got any damage from the water.

I did see a really cool Dyson hand vacuum the other day. Maybe we should get that (we need a decent hand vac) instead of the big Dyson Ball?

I'm weird. I like to vacuum. (I also like to wash clothes...which is really weird because I couldnt get my mom to let me even touch the washing machine till last year...she's really possessive about her washing machine)

Right now, I'm not sure I could really do much even with the light Oreck vacuum...this latest flare is sucking the life out of me. I can hardly climb the stairs. (have to crawl up, unless I use my mom's stair chair thingie)

If my Oreck works, I'm considering using it to do some "physical therapy". Light vacuuming every few days in small areas to try to get myself back into shape after the last couple of months of MS crap. (gonna go get real physical therapy as soon as I can get an appt with my regular doctor)

It was just really annoying to walk into the storeroom the other night and hear (and feel the squish) of a splash. Not happy at all. At least the water stayed away from the mini fridge and freezers. (they're not plugged into GFI's, I could have gotten zapped!) Once the bookcases are out of the way, the minifridge and freezer are going up on some bricks.

ick. I thought I was havong a day. PS the dyson ball is heavy. Fair warning, I couldn't lift the darn thing. Glad all of your yarn was saved though.

I have become the yarn girl myself. I also had to switch to rubbermaid when my washing machine decided to leak and destroy the box of arn that I had in the laundry room. Hey, it's easier to get to than the garage where I have to master the stairs.

I am glad the books are safe though. I am also a sucker for books.

I knitted for a while, but found that my eye sight will no longer let me. I also drop things too much.

Glad you are drying out Erin.

I taught myself how to knit about a day or two before the optic neuritis that was one of my first clues that I had MS hit. (August 2006) I was half blind for the better part of four or five months, and stayed in my bedroom in the dark for the first two or three months. I pretty much learned to knit in the dark.

Knitting kept me from going completely nuts from boredom for that year. (color vision was fubar for most of the year) I've been crocheting since I was about 5 or 6yrs old, the optic neuritis had me so freaked out that I just couldnt really concentrate on crocheting much. But the knitting was new and I had tried to learn a few times over the years, I had finally learned how to do it, so I pretty much just sat and tried to knit a really ugly scarf that first year. (it was UGLY!!!)

I finished my UGLY scarf about 9 months after the optic neuritis hit. Garter stitch, no mistakes in it (still havent learned how to fix mistakes) and it was the ugliest yarn I had in my stash. (color vision was horrible at the time) My dad loves that scarf tho. (he was my knitting teacher for when I had questions. He learned in Alaska in the 60s)

Last year when my left hand went numb I quit using knit stitch to make garter stitch. Switched and started doing purl stitch instead to make garter stitch. I knit continental (yarnover with my left hand), but I purl English. (throw the yarn with the right hand) Made it easier for me to get my yarn fix, since having a numb left hand also kept me from crocheting.

Now that my fingers work again, I'm crocheting more, but having a ton of fun with the knitting. I'm knitting dishcloths and crocheting fingerless mitts and making some shawls. I just hate doing the finishing where I have to hide the yarn ends. (that's boring)

Good thing my yarn stash stayed dry. We're having a nice (ok, crappy) blizzard today and I need something to keep me from going bonkers from the snow.

I'd like to do some sewing with my sewing machine, but my fingers are still a bit too clumsy from being slightly numb that I'm afraid that I'll sew my fingers up and I'm not sure I'd be able to get my eyes to focus enough to be able to thread the machine's needle. At least I can crochet and knit with my eyes closed.