Late last week, our area got extremely heavy rain for several days in a row. The ground was so soaked, the water had nowhere else to go, and it started to flood into houses’ basements. Excess rainwater would come through the basement’s drain, a glorified hole in the concrete floor. But for some homes, it could leak in through basement windows or cracks in the foundation. In our case, it was the drain and a few cracks. Fortunately, I anticipated this possibility and circled the drain with towels before the night with the heaviest forecast, and succeeded in preventing most of the water from reaching the carpet in the finished part of the basement. But, some carpeted areas did have cracks underneath, so were very damp by the morning, with a strong mildew smell. We really don’t want to trash our carpet, which some neighbors have done, so we bought a mid-range carpet cleaning machine. Moderately expensive, but it seems to have cleaned up the basement very well.
Of course, these kinds of stressful events never come alone. The next day, when the temperatures spiked thanks to the humidity, it became apparent that our larger car’s AC was not working. The repair is projected to be a couple thousand dollars.
This was immediately followed by the failure of our NAS (safely away from the wet carpet, if that was ever a concern), rendering all of our backed up files inaccessible until we can replace it. The purchase date shows that the unit is still under warranty, but it’s also no longer in production, so we’ll see what the manufacturer has to say. Best case scenario, they replace it with a new unit, either the same (from stock they keep for these Just In Case situations) or an upgraded equivalent. Realistic case, they replace with a refurb of the same model. Worst case scenario, they refuse to replace the unit and we have to buy a new one.