Scary Basement

Ever since we moved, mysterious sidewalk jerky keeps appearing in our basement...only sometimes it is not jerky yet and squiggles most nastily in odd places I hope not to step with my bare feet.



We think they get in under this door, so we sealed under it in an attempt to keep them out. Then we noticed one day that the carpet was wet and smelled of cats! Yes, the previous owners had a cat, but more importantly, where was the water coming from? The carpet started to show signs of mold along the edges. Yuck!



Also, the person who designed the plumbing for this house, did a not so fine job by somehow fixing the washer upstairs, so it sometimess regurgitates into the little sink in the basement which also has overflowed a time or two, leading to more wet carpet.



When we checked the drain outside the door, we discovered two problems. First, it is a french drain and thus, in heavy rainfall, does not drain particularly rapidly, causing the water to back up. Second, the threshold of the door was only a quarter of an inch above the level of the drain. Now you can see that we have poured a higher concrete threshold so the water can be deeper than a quarter of an inch before it comes pouring into the house, bringing all manner of worms with it!



Next we installed some new vinyl in the areas most likely to get wet in the future so they are easier to clean. Happily, mold was NOT growing under the old carpet.