and the rains came down, as the floods went up...

I had to swallow hard when I received the quote to do a little drainage work around the house. But, wanting to prevent further deterioration around the south side of our 150 year old nightmare with "character" I gave the go-ahead. Foundation work to follow.

We now have a small swale.....or moat.......diverting rain water away from the foundation and to the back yard, roughly in the vicinity of the swing set. And of course, our sump pump has been disconnected from the city sewer.....which is good considering it's a violation. And of course, as the swale was cut, a retaining wall would be required.......and, of course, regardless of disconnecting the sump pump from the sewer.....some investigation revealed a plugged sewer line. I pull the toilet off for auguring tomorrow.

I've been cursed with plumbing problems since my first place in town, a downtown studio apartment. The toilet constantly trickled water.......when I told the landlord, he told me I should fix it, because it built character. To which I refused since I was moving out. So, it's been toilet after toilet and flooded basements. One funny toilet story: we had a Latino fella living in our rental at one time. He came over late one night with quite an emergency....it seemed his front bridge fell out of his mouth and into the toilet and he flushed before he realized what had happened. He did all this with hand motions because he knew no English. He wanted me to try to get it back.....I suggested he wouldn't want the bridge back even if I could get them. I guess digging through sewage would have built character. Maybe more character than digging a moat, I'm sure. They also broke the toilet bowl and fixed it with duct tape. That didn't work so well.