August 25, 2011

natural disaster week!

i get the impression that if this was all we came home to after the earthquake, it would STILL be more damage than most people saw:
but as we know... photos and books falling down on a bookshelf was the least of our woes.

this is the current state of our bedroom.
that's an industrial fan and an industrial dehumidifier.

late tuesday night, some contractors showed up at our house to assess the situation. our neighborhood sustained a surprising amount of damage - ours was not the only building affected by a burst pipe, for starters! - so it was nearly 11pm by the time they got to our place.

they cut some big pieces out of the drywall in our water heater closet so that they could try and dry out our walls from the inside - hopefully drying everything out enough this way that we don't need to replace / redo any walls or floors.
it took a while for the cats to warm up to the enormous, noisy machines scattered around the house...
the other surprise, which i didn't notice until a little later, is the crack up one wall. i was vacuuming the condo on tuesday night (did i mention we had houseguests coming on wednesday?!) when i came upon a pile of plaster dusting the carpet:
it looked like someone had drilled a hole in the wall to hang shelves or something, but obviously we hadn't done anything like that. which was when i realized it came from the brand-new crack running from the carpet all the way to the ceiling.
oh.

i mean, i don't think it's incredibly SERIOUS, like structurally unsound or anything... but on the other hand, A CRACK FROM FLOOR TO CEILING! goodness. thanks, earthquake!

so, you know, that's happening. we're waiting for the contractors to come back eventually and check how the drying is going before we know more.

MEANWHILE, i have tomorrow (friday) off because it's time for our annual Girls' Weekend In Dewey Beach, wooooo party weekennnnnd!

....except, HAHA, we have another fucking natural disaster on the way! Hurricane Irene has effectively shut down all beach plans for the entire east coast - a state of emergency has already been declared in every state from North Carolina to Connecticut.

mother nature: you are clearly trying to send a message. i wish i knew what it was so you could STOP REPEATING IT.


10 comments:

  1. This is when you're EXTRA SUPER GLAD to be a renter, am I right?

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  2. Alas, Chris owns. So I'M still a renter, but you know. Pretty invested in how my landlord fares in all this :)

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  3. Holy crap, sounds like you guys got the bad end of the bargain. I hope everything dries out and is NOT flooded again by the hurricane!

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  4. argh! Wth is up with Mother Nature this year?!

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  5. wow, you had real damage! i felt the earthquake and just really got dizzy, it was my first one to experience and i didn't like it one bit.

    glad everyone is ok though!

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  6. Sorry about the damage but GAWD I love that couch. And I think I say that everytime you post a picture that it is in.

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  7. Oh boy everything about this post stinks. Hopefully Irene stays FAR FAR AWAY from the East Coast (although that is not how she is tracking right now). Bitch.

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  8. Mothereffing nature. She REALLY has it in for us.

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  9. GAH. What a huge (expensive) pain. Hope you fare better in the hurricane...!

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  10. Good grief! What a doozy of a week! My brother just got word they're evacuating the NJ coast, so he's off to my parents' place to stay dry. Might be a good weekend for drinking games ... at home!

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