Last year, we (Brian) celebrated Memorial Day by cleaning up a large limb that fell in our backyard. It was his first day off in many months, however he worked all day clearing out the yard. We were hoping for a quiet and project-free holiday weekend this year, however that wasn't quite the case.
We were lucky though in that someone else had to fix our issue this year. Last week, we noticed our main drain was backing up when doing laundry. Luckily Brian caught it before it completely overflowed and flooded our basement. I had the plumber come in on Wednesday to fix the problem. He cleared out the sewer line and pulled out some roots. We thought all was well until later that night when Brian did laundry and noticed it backing up again.
On Friday, Brian met the plumber at our house on his lunch hour for what we thought was going to be a quick fix. The plumber cleaned out the line one more time, however the drain kept backing up. They realized at the point that it was a city issue. I got a call at work from Brian, letting me know that this was turning into a bigger mess than we expected. I left work so I could wait for the city crews. After putting a camera down their sewer lines, they discovered roots blocking our line. When the city crew left, they told me that I would be getting a call letting us know what they planned on doing to fix the problem. They gave me the impression that they would be fixing the issue soon.
By 4:20 pm, when I still hadn't received a phone call, I called the city to inquire and was told that I wouldn't get a call until Tuesday. Due to the holidays, they wouldn't be sending out a crew until next week. Gulp.....at this point in time, it had been since the weekend since we did laundry and our plan was to start potty training for Mia that weekend. Needless to saying this wasn't good timing.
By the end of the night, it was clear that our sewer line was barely working and that even flushing the toilet was causing problems. The next morning I had just told the girls that we were going to go to Nana and Papa's house for the weekend, when I heard a diesel truck idling outside the house. I peeked outside to discover a parade of construction trucks pulling up in front of our house. Hooray! The man that I talked to on the phone had no clue what he was talking about. They did send a crew out to fix the lines on a Saturday. At first the girls still wanted to go to Nana's and Papa's but then Allison remembered that we were going to make cupcakes that weekend and decided that we should stick around. The rest of the morning the girls kept peeking outside to oversee the construction crew. I give major props to our city workers for working a holiday weekend and saving our basement from a potential stinky and messy disaster.
