Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
A few weeks ago, before I went to sleep, I went down to the basement to retrieve a beer from our second refrigerator. That was when I noticed water pooled on the floor. Uh-oh, I thought, assuming something was wrong with the upright freezer next to the refrigerator.
Hoping this was the case, I did what many of us—perhaps including you—would do. I pretended I didn’t see the water and crossed my fingers that it would disappear by the time I wanted another beer.
You already know where this is going. The water didn’t disappear. In fact, when I returned to the basement the next morning, not only was it still puddled in front of the freezer but the carpet in the adjacent room was sopping wet.
What did I do this time? You guessed it. I again walked back upstairs and hoped the basement water problem would go away.
Later that day, though, my wife, Amy, went down to the basement (not to get a beer, or at least so she says) and discovered that the water problem had worsened significantly.
It was about this time, at Amy’s insistence, that I decided to investigate the cause of the water issue.
I went to the floor drain in the furnace room, near where I had discovered the initial puddle, and pulled it up to see if it was clogged.
It was. With toilet paper.
A long process
That discovery set in motion a chain of events that has now, more than three weeks later, transformed our cluttered but otherwise usable basement into a drab pair of rooms separated by a row of vertical studs where there once was paneling. There are also now ugly bare concrete floors where there once was carpeting.
Most of the contents of these rooms have been boxed up and relocated to a giant rented pod storage unit that has taken over most of the square footage of our driveway.
The cleaning and restoration company is on the job, and our insurance company has been helpful, but getting everything back in order is proving to be a long process. As I write this, it’s the second week of May. I hope to have my basement back to some semblance of what it was by Independence Day.
A below-ground luxury
This misadventure has me thinking about basements. Why do we have them, and why do we continue to put up with the headaches that accompany them?
Basements date back to ancient times and were originally just holes dug in the ground to store food and drink at a cool, stable temperature. By the Renaissance, in wealthy residences they began to take the form of actual rooms for laundry, servants’ quarters, or other uses.
The American basement, especially in middle class homes in the post-war years, became something else entirely—an additional floor of living space. Growing up in a house without a basement, I was intensely jealous of those living in houses with this below-ground luxury.
My aunt and uncle had a basement with a television and couch. My grandparents’ basement included a spare bed and a record player. Our neighbor’s basement had multiple rooms with plenty of space for a weight bench and a Ping-Pong table.
If there was a Basement Hall of Fame (sadly, I don’t believe there is), the house my friends and I hung out in all the time as teenagers would have been elected on the first ballot. This finished basement had a pool table and a powerful stereo with a cable hookup on the receiver that pulled in big-city radio stations. Not to mention my friend’s dad’s epic collection of Bollywood VHS tapes.
Forget Disney. That basement was the happiest place on Earth. I still miss it.
Finally, my own basement
When we bought our first house, I finally got a basement of my own. It was the drab, damp level where our washer and dryer were located, but half of the basement was a room with a hardwood floor. This proved to be a great spot for our sons’ playroom, and video game lair when they became teens.
Of course, that basement also flooded from time to time. And we had to have an expensive French drain system installed. By the time we sold the house and moved, I didn’t much care if I ever had another basement.
But then I experienced the basement in our current house. With Amy’s blessing, I transformed the carpeted room into a cozy music den for playing my guitars and vinyl records.
The unfinished side, meanwhile, was outfitted with the extra refrigerator and freezer, an additional electric stove for cooking Thanksgiving turkeys, and built-in cabinets for storing Amy’s stash of dishes and Christmas decorations.
I loved our basement. And if all goes well, I’ll love it again someday.
But there are lessons to be learned here.
Most importantly, if there’s water in your basement, don’t ignore it. It probably doesn’t belong there. Especially if it’s sewage.
And how can you tell if it’s sewage and not just water?
Believe me, you’ll know.
