Cliffs are at the bottom for those who don't like reading...
This past weekend's storm kicked me in the ass. I was expecting to put my townhouse up for sale this week. Over the past 2 1/2 weeks I spent ~$10k on repairs, replaciing the carpet/some flooring etc (10k doesn't go as far as you might think). Everything was hunky dorry until yesterday, when I went downstairs and discovered that 1/2 my basement was flooded.
Over the past five years (entire time I've owned the house) I have never had water in the basement, so I figure it has to be some defect on the outside of the house (e.g., crack in the roof or exterior). I go out on my deck, look at the wall where the water is coming in, and notice that water is pouring down the side of my house. I look up to find that about 8' of the gutter on my next door neighbor's house has ripped away from his roof, and all the water that should be making its way down his downspout is instead coming down the side of my house.
I knock on my neighbor's door to discover that he is not home. I go to the house 1 door over from my neighbor, and they are nice enough to lend me a ladder and some tools. I decide to jump from their deck to my neighbor's deck (across a gap ~4 feet wide and over a 20 foot drop), bring the ladder over, and nail the gutter back into place (note: it was still pouring rain at this time).
I get up on the ledge of my neighbor's deck and prepare to jump across. Although I was a bit nervous, I jumped, only to catch my foot on the rain slicker I was wearing. My head and torso still cleared the ledge of my neighbors deck thank goodness, but my foot caught the railing, and so I faceplanted. Amazingly I was unhurt. I brought the ladder over from the other deck, tied it to the left side of my neighbor's deck to prevent it from slipping, and crawled up to hammered the gutter back in place.
Thankfully, once the gutter was fixed, no additional watter came into my house, and I have since been able to dry out/save my new carpet in the basement.
Moral of the story, if you live in a townhouse, make sure your neighbors take care of their house as well as you take care of yours.
Cliffs:
-OP spent $10k repairing his house to put it on the market, including $4k on new carpet
-Northeaster blows in, Op discovers basement is flooding
-Op discovers cause of flooding was neighbor's gutter, which ripped away from their house
-Neighbor was not home, so OP tries to jump from 2nd neighbor's deck to neighbor's deck;
-To Op's chagrin, Op is not graceful, and almost falls to his death/faceplants on neighbor's deck
-Op successfully repairs gutter in driving rainstorm, saves $4k worth of new carpet.
This past weekend's storm kicked me in the ass. I was expecting to put my townhouse up for sale this week. Over the past 2 1/2 weeks I spent ~$10k on repairs, replaciing the carpet/some flooring etc (10k doesn't go as far as you might think). Everything was hunky dorry until yesterday, when I went downstairs and discovered that 1/2 my basement was flooded.
Over the past five years (entire time I've owned the house) I have never had water in the basement, so I figure it has to be some defect on the outside of the house (e.g., crack in the roof or exterior). I go out on my deck, look at the wall where the water is coming in, and notice that water is pouring down the side of my house. I look up to find that about 8' of the gutter on my next door neighbor's house has ripped away from his roof, and all the water that should be making its way down his downspout is instead coming down the side of my house.
I knock on my neighbor's door to discover that he is not home. I go to the house 1 door over from my neighbor, and they are nice enough to lend me a ladder and some tools. I decide to jump from their deck to my neighbor's deck (across a gap ~4 feet wide and over a 20 foot drop), bring the ladder over, and nail the gutter back into place (note: it was still pouring rain at this time).
I get up on the ledge of my neighbor's deck and prepare to jump across. Although I was a bit nervous, I jumped, only to catch my foot on the rain slicker I was wearing. My head and torso still cleared the ledge of my neighbors deck thank goodness, but my foot caught the railing, and so I faceplanted. Amazingly I was unhurt. I brought the ladder over from the other deck, tied it to the left side of my neighbor's deck to prevent it from slipping, and crawled up to hammered the gutter back in place.
Thankfully, once the gutter was fixed, no additional watter came into my house, and I have since been able to dry out/save my new carpet in the basement.
Moral of the story, if you live in a townhouse, make sure your neighbors take care of their house as well as you take care of yours.
Cliffs:
-OP spent $10k repairing his house to put it on the market, including $4k on new carpet
-Northeaster blows in, Op discovers basement is flooding
-Op discovers cause of flooding was neighbor's gutter, which ripped away from their house
-Neighbor was not home, so OP tries to jump from 2nd neighbor's deck to neighbor's deck;
-To Op's chagrin, Op is not graceful, and almost falls to his death/faceplants on neighbor's deck
-Op successfully repairs gutter in driving rainstorm, saves $4k worth of new carpet.
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