There is no better feeling than purchasing your first home.
There is no worse feeling than flooding that house a week after they hand you the keys.
Yes, me and my husband single-handedly flooded our very own home.
We have always been VERY careful with our money. Besides the essentials (food, water, diapers, gas, rent/mortgage) we really never spend extra money.
So of course we decided to clean the carpets in our new house by ourselves, instead of hiring someone else to do it.
We borrowed a carpet cleaner from a friends dad. After receive pretty vague instructions on how to use it, we started our project.
We soaked those carpets with chemicals, I’m talking soooaaakkked. We then rinsed them with an equally disastrous amount of water. We then left the house convinced that when we came back the next day that the carpets would be all dry and smell like roses in a field of happiness.
BIG MISTAKE.
We came back the next day to carpets that seemed to have gotten WETTER and not dryer overnight (…how is that possible?!). We decided that the best solution to this problem we created would be to re-clean every carpet, but this time leave all the windows open.
Operation soak the carpets in buckets of water, then rinse the carpets in even more water, commenced yet again.
This time though, we left the house with all the windows cracked open. We knew when we came back in a couple days that the carpets would definitely be dry.
A couple days later we returned. As we opened our front door, the most vile, nasty, vomit-inducing smell hit us like a ton of bricks.
(Noooooo!!)
Every inch of our carpets was emitting the most foul mildew stench I had ever smelled. I began to full on panic.
“I knew this was a bad idea! I knew we should have hired someone. Now we are going to have to pull out all these carpets and spend 2000+ on new carpets. We just bought a house! We can’t spend 2000 on new carpets!!”
I began to Google every possible solution to our problem. What I thought would help me find a magical remedy for mildewing carpets, only led me to a ton of sites telling me that if we were to leave soaked carpets overnight for more than 24 house we were destined to have a mold filled home, that we had pretty much flooded our own home, and that if we were smelling mildew it already means you have mold growth.
Now you should know that I have a tendency to assume the worst possible case scenario when placed in a high stress situation. I know, its a problem. But, I was convinced we had already grown a mold market.
“We cannot live here. We need to leave immediately. I will not bring my child into a moldy home. I cannot do it. You can die from mold! We have to tear out all the carpets now!” I exclaimed.
My poor Husband. He just sat and listened to me rant about the worse case scenarios for a good 2 hours. Finally the germ-a-phobe, anxiety ridden side of me calmed down and I took a breath. “A happy wife makes for a happy life, calm down,” I told myself three times fast in my head.
“You know what? This will be such a fun experience to go through together huh?” Who gets to say they flooded their own house”
My husband looked at me with a look I presume meant either “my wife is a mental roller coaster,” or “I am so glad she no longer thinks she is going to die from a mold overdose.” Probably both. “We’ll have someone come look at it when it dries, until then let’s not worry” he told me.
Wow, such a simple solution.
It was about that time that we discovered a special setting on the carpet cleaner that sucks up all the water from the carpets (wouldn’t that be nice to know three days ago). Maybe we could save our carpets after all. We sucked all the water out of our carpets till we could only feel a tiny hint of dampness under our feet. We then proceeded to spray them with vinegar to remove the scent of mildew. We left feeling very hopeful that the carpets would finally dry this time.
Well good news.
THEY DID!
It took about a week for the mildew scent to finally leave, but it has and we are thrilled.
Now we are just hoping that no significant mold growth has occurred underneath the carpets in the carpet pads. After we get that checked, we can finally move in our new home!
*Fingers Crossed!*
Oh how fun it is to be me!
Yes, as you discovered, that is the whole point of a carpet cleaner… to suck back up the water. 😉
We woke one morning to a broken water pipe and a flooded hall and living room. After pulling away the worst of the saturated carpet pads in the hallway, letting everything dry, then pressing back down the carpet in the hallway (with no padding), we made all these plans to lay down tiles or maybe wood. But other bills get in the way and then several years go by. Maybe one of the these days we will get there.
Yeah you would think it would register with me that something was wrong with the fact that we didn't suck up water, but it didn't. Blond moment for me right there! We are wanting to eventually change out some carpets in our dining room for wood, and in the hallway, but need to save up some money first, so I know what that is like! I am so sorry your house flooded! But, I am so happy you were able to save the carpets!! That is always a relief!
get a job, cunt
Wow… Rude! How do you know she doesn't have a job?? And even if she doesn't, a homemaker/wife/mother is a job, no you don't get paid for it (well unless the husband buys her gifts & spoils her), but they work harder then most people with a job, their work is never finished (& I'm saying this as a stay at home wife/homemaker & ex-foster parent), I'm often up late cleaning the kitchen/doing dishes or the living room or anything else that needs cleaned after my husband goes to bed & when I get up in the morning I'm still busy trying to make my home nice. And who are you to call her a cunt?? You were too scared to call her that using your real name, so you hid behind "anonymous"- well keep hating on her but she is still gonna shine!