12.03.2007

RAIN

What. The. Fuck.

I didn't learn my lesson last year when my car narrowly escaped drowning in the underground garage you see here at my apartment. This time last year the drains were clogged but they managed to get the water pumped out pretty quick. Last night I got home late from K's house and saw some water gurgling a bit out of the drain in the garage. I figured that after that incident it couldn't be that bad. All the shit that was clogging it last year is probably cleared out.

I was tired and needed to go to bed and so I did. This morning I hurried off to catch my bus, a bus that did not show up. Neither did the second or third bus. 25 minutes later I caught the 4th bus and barely made it to school in time to teach my class. The roads were flooded everywhere and the bus looked like it was driving through a fucking river.

Oh and did I mention that today's class was taught outside in the pouring rain being blown sideways by the wind? Yeah, we're practicing our vocal projection for outdoor advocacy speeches. Being sane, I had the students each run through their speeches in groups and then ushered them inside to do TA evals before sending them off early. 11:30 am and I head on over to stats class.

I'm taking out my laptop when the phone rings. It's the management at my apartment. There is 3' of water on the street in front of the apartment (where Denny's car is parked) and the garage is filling up with water. Denny managed to wade to his car and move it and do the same with our other roomate's car. Mine however requires an alarm and a club key and when the alarm goes off the car doesn't start. So that is fucking awesome.

I had to skip out of stats, office hours and a job talk to go home and rescue my car. Actually since Denny had already done all sorts of swimming in dirty water to get his car and Jerri's car he kindly offered to wade knee deep to my car and drive it over to the grocery store parking lot. Damage was already done though. Cars are apparently not to be submerged even in 2.5" of water or you have the pleasure of scooping it out. Here are pics of my car.

I love my life.

So can someone tell me who I'm supposed to pay to suck out the rest of the water, spray anti-mildew stuff on the rugs, clean them and dry them? I imagine there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this and I want to make sure to not fuck this up.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Damn, that sucks, sorry to hear it happening to you (as opposed to happening to tons of people I don't know and, frankly, couldn't care less about).

I think it might be easiest just to find some place that will detail the inside of your car, and see if they have some crazy vaccuum system that can handle sucking up water/fluids in large volume. Afterwards, they should be able to help clean it all out for you.

As for the mildew/mold issue that might happen after all that, pick up some pet spray stuff -- it's the stuff that cleans up pet "accidents" and decomposes enzymes and all sorts of nasty things. I used it when Ed decides to technicolor my GTI one night back in the Bay Area, and that stuff works.

Shockr said...

Hey, look on the bright side! It's rain and not -30C today... It's averaging around -30C up here in Yukon this week... 20 degrees below normal. When the temperature hits -40C, it also is -40F! That's how cold it is here right now.

I read a story recently where these used written off cars were from Katrina were being sold to some South American countries. I think if your car has water damage, it might qualify as a write off... Check with your insurance company.

Fumbling said...

hey thanks guys, and when you two coming back to vancouver to visit??