It's always something

This morning I took a shower, went to the bedroom to get dressed, and heard water running. When I looked over at the bed, I saw Jeff was still in it and realized the sound was coming from the basement. At this point, I yelled out something unintelligible along the lines of "we have a problem. in the basement. get up. now." while running downstairs.

I was greeted by a waterfall pouring out over our washer.

We quickly sprang to action and unplugged the washer and pulled it away from the geyser. We also shut off the water at the main shut-off valve, conveniently located behind the dryer. And then we stood and stared as the water kept shooting out the top of the pipe (and no, we didn't go get the camera. Jeff took the picture while waiting for the plumber).

The water kept coming, and I must say it took Jeff and I an embarrassing length of time to realize that the water was flowing into the sump pump well, the pump was pumping it out, and that same water was then spurting back out. Once we figured that out, we unplugged the sump pump. There, immediate problem solved.

Then we called a plumber and thankfully they were able to come today with their big roto-rooter machine. They went out 100 feet and attacked 3 tree roots along the way. The City of Raleigh can thank us because our property line only extends about 60 feet - so we did a little line maintenance for the City. Anyway, the plumbers said it was tree roots, poop, and Charmin. No kidding, apparently the plumbers actually recognized the Charmin. I guess it's such high quality it doesn't break down very easily. Who knew? I, of course, think this means we should switch toilet paper brands, while Jeff feels it's a testament to the high quality and all the more reason to buy it.

Anyway, this immediate plumbing problem has been fixed. We'll probably have these same guys (I'm assuming that all their employees are male and I'm from the midwest so "guys" is actually gender neutral) out to finally install a shut-off valve for our washer set-up and to replace the few polybutylene pipes we have. But for now, we're back in business.