After the floods from the tropical twins Irene and Lee, we knew the basement needed immediate and expensive waterproofing.
A second mortgage and a lot of jackhammering later, mission accomplished - no more would we have a water problem inside our house.
Now we have a water problem outside.
Seems the earth around my foundation - the same ground that would allow water to seep in through my basement walls and floors - is not particularly suited for drainage.
So now, after a heavy rain and/or snowmelt, the water that would have found its way into my basement ends up pooled up in my (and my neighbor's) yard.
The discharge from the sump pump, carried through a hard pipe to the top of a rise away from my foundation, is belched out through a pop-up drain in my yard and rolls down to a growing sinkhole that forms a lake at the front of my property.
If only I could coax it the rest of the way into the storm sewer that passes beneath the road surface, just feet from my lake.
But how?
Do I have to foot the bill to run a pipe directly into the municipal storm sewer? Is that even allowed? Or will they install a catch basin on the edge of my property? I'm in contact with city officials who promise to assess the situation, so I'm hopeful for a resolution soon.
In the meantime, I cringe every time I hear the pump click on and off -- every few seconds at the peak of a storm, then gradually tapering off to longer and longer intervals of quiet until it finally goes silent after a couple weeks of dry weather.
It's frustrating not knowing what to do with the water next - seems almost like the menacing pink blob in my daughter's favorite Dr. Seuss book, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back."
In the book, the ugly stain left in the bathtub is transferred from Mom's dress to Dad's shoes, across the walls, and eventually into the snow outside before ultimately being vaporized, courtesy of Little Cat Z, with some magical process or compound called Voom.
Yeah, that's what I need; just a little Voom.
