Housing Crisis

Rooter in the bathroom.

Owning a house rules, well, until suddenly it doesn't. Friday I was hanging out in my house, minding my own business and decided to do some laundry. As I was leaving the laundry room I noticed the basement sink was full of 'dirt'. My first thought was to blame my sister who has been staying with me. It was probably a bit of a stretch to assume that she had been washing something really dirty in the sink, but who knows (sorry Suzanne). But at the same time I noticed a faint scent of what I will nicely call 'sewage'. My ability to stay in denial was diminishing.

So, I spent the next 20 minutes running down stairs to see how washing machine was effecting the sink. And finally I had my answer, as the washer rinsed, the sink filled.

When I bought my house, I paid a bunch of money to have someone run a camera down my toilet and through my sewer lines. The verdict was that I would need to have my sewer lines rooted within a year. So a year or so after I moved in, I called a plumber and asked them to do just that. Unfortunately, this didn't exactly work out. I don't have good access to the sewer lines in my house. The plumber walked around and huffed and puffed and looked really grouchy. Finally he said he could come back and try to find the sewer lines (something that would involved digging). However, it was pretty clear he never ever wanted to return to my house.

So, I forgot about it.

And finally, two years later, my sink was filling up with raw sewage. This time I called Roto Rooter. The Roto Rooter guy (who was about 20), was equally as grouchy. He had to remove my toilet and could only root with 1/2 blade. Which made him even more grouchy and included much gloom and doom talk about how the roots would now be even more robust and I needed to have someone run a camera through the lines and install better access etc.

Sigh, $500 and 'half' a job later, at least I can flush the toilet without filling up the basement sink.

Think what I could do with $500!