Backing up to about two week.... We had our trailer on a seasonal lot at a local campground this year. The kids and I showed up one afternoon to discover carpenter ants all over the trailer. I killed over 50 of them that day. We began an all out assault against the little buggers, but were not seeming to be gaining any headway. It all came to an abrupt halt the night our kids were on a sleepover and Kevin and I were laying in bed. He was playing a game and I was reading a book, when a big black ant fell out of our vent in the ceiling and landed on my lap. We pulled the trailer home the next day.
The kids and I emptied the entire trailer and we proceeded to bomb it. Trying to keep this story as short as possible, we ended up bombing the trailer 2 more times. We killed hundreds of ants. After the third bombing, we still discovered live ants. Kevin decided to pull some of the ceiling down to "see" what was going on.
I was there for this lovely event... Now I am the bug killer in our family. If a spider is spied somewhere in our house, my name is called (by all the members of this family) to come kill it. I don't freak out when there are bugs around, however, I did let out a little shriek as Kevin pulled the ceiling down to reveal lots of dead ants and also live ants. Pulling the ceiling down also revealed the reason the ants were in our trailer in the first place. Our ceiling has water damage...fungus...mold... all over it. After pulling the ceiling down we decided to bomb yet again.
Kevin and I have full confidence that Kev can do this work himself, but we lack a place for him to perform the work. Once you remove the old roof, the entire trailer is completely exposed to the elements of weather until you get the new roof on, so we would need an enclosed facility, which we don't have. Plus the materials that are coming to fix our trailer won't get here for 6-8wks.Kevin and I decided to go to the our trailer dealer to talk through all our options, which could or could not include turning in our unit for another one so that we aren't waiting all summer for a trailer to camp in. We were there for near minutes when we got a frantic call from home saying that they hear water running and it was coming from the master bathroom upstairs. Our neighbor, thankfully, was able to get the water off at the toilet and worked very hard at minimizing the water damage while we raced back home.
When arriving home we discovered that the supply to the toilet had broke and it was spraying water like a hose. Water is a sneaky and quick advancer of damage. We estimate it took under 10min (probably closer to 5min) to get the water turned all the way off. In that time water moved from the master bathroom, under walls into the boys room and the master closet. It flowed down the walls and registers to the living room and continued it's way into the basement.We called in the reserves (our Dad's) who came racing to try and prevent the water from causing even more damage. When we had arrived home, we saw that our living room ceiling was holding water. We raced to get plastic down to prevent our living room carpet from getting ruined. We had just laid the last piece of plastic when a section of the ceiling fell down. Kevin was poking relief holes in the ceiling to allow the water to pour out into buckets, that were replaced with 30 gal trash cans.
At one point Kevin was up on the ladder, removing drywall from the ceiling when he climbed down quickly and put his foot right in one of the water buckets... shoe and all... it stuck on his foot. We got a good laugh about that...
We called a company that comes in and starts the drying out process. They arrived around 9 pm and worked until almost 1 am, getting blowers going on all floors in all effected rooms, they also brought in huge dehumidifiers to suck the water out of the air as quickly as possible. They sprayed on an antimicrobial spray to prohibit mold growth as well.
Yesterday we had the insurance adjuster come to check out all the damage. I can't even begin to write all that needs to be fixed. There was a HUGE amount of damage done. Some of the damage is very straight forward, what needs to happen to get it fixed, but some... like our living room/kitchen area, is sickening to think what has to happen to fix things the way they were.
Sadly the arch way between our kitchen and living room received thousands of dollars worth of damage. To fix it, would require removing half of our kitchen cabinets, countertops and parts of our tile backsplash. It's overwhelming for Kevin to think about, which means his systematic mind is still reeling from what has to happen to fix it (this is not normal for him). We are trying desperately to figure out a way to fix drywall damage without removing half of our kitchen. Our living room ceiling is no more... it needs to be completely replaced... exposed floor joists are an interesting look for a living room... Once the drywall is back up on the living room ceiling and drywall is fixed on the walls, we will need to repaint and then put the crown molding (that Kevin painstakingly removed so we could reuse it) has to go back up. Carpet was saved, but will need to be cleaned.
Our basement is a little more straight forward, but it still requires a lot of work. The "front" playroom has to be re-drywalled and repainted. The carpet has to have pad replaced then it needs to be re-stretched and cleaned. The ceiling has water damage spots so, we need to seal and repaint that. We also lost some furniture down there.
As far as the upstairs, the master bath cabinet needs replacing, the wood floor had to be removed,so new flooring needs to be placed down. The master closet/bedroom will need all new carpet. The boys room has to have new pad laid and then the carpet needs to be stretched and cleaned.
Yesterday all the huge machines were removed from the house. We had decided that the water, ant, mold infested trailer was a better place to sleep while our house was a hot, loud, wind tunnel. So the last few nights we had been camping out there. But last night, Kevin was able to put some things back, so we were able to sleep in our beds last night and it felt good.
Who knows how long it will take to get our house back in order. At least a month for sure... but in the meantime, we are taking it a day at a time.
I need to stop right here and first say that although these last few weeks have been a trial (we had added stressors like unexpected truck repairs, a child sleep puking in his sisters bedroom thinking it was the toilet) we have been giving praise to our God that although all these things have been happening, we are all healthy and alive. Our house might be a mess for awhile, but we have a house! Our trailer might be damaged, but God is working there too.
Second... I need to say, that as water was pouring out of our ceiling, and parts of it were falling to the floor. As the damage was slowly realized, Kevin never ONCE lost his cool. He never even swore!! He was calm and collected, he brought order to our chaos. He brought a calm security, that although this was bad, we were going to make it through this. The kids looked to him for comfort and found a loving father who expressed love to them in many ways. He told them they did everything right, he told them how proud he was of their quick thinking and actions. He hugged them many times and continued to reassure them of their good choices and smart thinking. He even laughed with me as water dripped down my shirt, and a bucket of water became a piece of foot wear. As we laid our heads down in the early morning hours of that first night, he held my hand and instead of praying to God about the "whys" and "how comes" he thanked God for his blessings, for his home, family, safety. He chose to be positive in his prayer. He has continued staying positive these past few days. I can not tell you how his attitude in all this has blessed me. I am usually the calm, easy going (to a fault) one, and this time around, I was having a hard time finding my groove. He steadied me and while holding my hand, spoke blessings over our family.
I am married to an amazing man, a man who has been growing and changing. A man who strives to be more and more like Jesus. A man who recognizes his role as a father/husband and takes it seriously. There is a country song that I love called "Watching You" by Rodney Atkins (click to watch the video). Tyler loves to sing it, and in these past few weeks, watching Kevin and how he has handled all our chaos just brings this song closer to home. I know my boys are watching him and someday when they encounter disaster of any level, they will remember how their Daddy handled it and hopefully they handle it as beautifully has he has.
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