Quote of the Day

How dark is dark? How wise is wise?
---the fortune cookie in tonight's Chinese takeout



...

Sometimes I really wonder about the people who write those things.

wherein the smoke shop floods

This post is basically an excuse to share some pictures of today's flood in the basement of the smoke shop. :-(

What you need to know: the building I work in (which has three stores on the ground floor and an advocacy center on the second floor) was built around 1900, give or take a few years. It is old. Its plumbing is old. The previous landlord was an absentee dickwad who lived in Florida and didn't give a shit about all the things that went wrong. So there are a lot of maintenance issues that have been getting worse over the years because he wouldn't hire anyone to fix them.

One consequence of that is that when it rains a lot -- either a really torrential downpour or steady rain over several days -- the storm sewers cannot cope and stuff starts to overflow. Also the caulk on the rear alley side of the building is falling apart so water seeps in (pours in, more like) and runs down the walls to collect in the basement. Also also, there is no guard flap on the back door of the smoke shop, so water can flow in right under the door and flood our back storage/office room.

A torrential downpour hit Ithaca between 9:00 and 9:30am. The basement flooded. The back alley flooded. Our back room flooded.

Sweetheart was able to get the back room mopped up by the time I arrived at noon, but neither she nor Melodrama had had a chance to get down to the basement. The owner of the gear consignment shop had gone downstairs, however, and he called our new landlords (who bought the building maybe a year and a half ago) to report nearly a half inch of standing water in the shared open area of the basement. And wonder of wonders, they sent a maintenance guy over who promised to actually DO SOMETHING TO FIX THE PROBLEM. :-O (My coworkers didn't call because we're still thinking in terms of the old landlord, whom calling would not have done any good.)

I still spent at least two hours mopping, dumping buckets of water down the old elevator shaft, and sweeping the remaining water over the drier, higher parts of the floor to increase the evaporation rate. SO MUCH WATER. Ugh.

Also we need to move our financial paperwork, because there is apparently a leak in the ceiling of our junk room right over the bookcase where we store them. I was just starting to get the old statements dried out from the LAST flood (about two weeks ago, give or take) and now three of those boxes are soaked AGAIN. Double ugh and blecch besides. (I think the boxes are growing mold...)

Anyway, pictures!

( cut for photos )

So yeah. Lots of water, lots of argh.