The Reinhard Chronicles: The Marley House

WOOOOOO!!! New house ladies and gentlemen!!!

After living at the apartment for almost two years, Allan and I decided it was time for a change. We really needed more space for all the things we have, and with Miracle getting older, I really wanted her to have a fenced in backyard where she could just chill. We also host a lot, and wanted to have the option of a couple guest bedrooms with a large space for dinner guests and game nights.

The last time I wrote a blog post about moving I mentioned that I thought all our houses should have names. And since this is our first official “house”, I’m going to start now. I’m so excited to introduce you all to The Marley House!

With a couple friends helping, we moved everything over pretty quickly, and we’ve been settling in slowly but surely.

But of course, what would a Reinhard Chronicle story be without a couple mishaps?

At first, all was well. All the boxes were deposited in their correct rooms, the washer and dryer were plugged in, and we were settling into the new space. As I was sitting in the rec room, I realized I could hear water rushing. So I followed the growing puddle into the downstairs bathroom where the toilet was overflowing and rapidly spreading down the hall and across the floor. We scrambled to stop the flow of water, and open the back door to let the muddied water flow outside.

A quick cursory glance at the toilet, and we realized there was a clog somewhere in the pipe. We tried draino first, which didn’t work at all, so off we went to Home Depot to grab a snake to unclog the pipe. Which, of course, was too short. So our friend grabbed a longer one and STILL couldn’t reach the clog. It wasn’t until the end of the day, with all of us scared to turn on the water for fear of causing the leaking to get worse, that we called a plumber and he went in to find the problem. The answer? A flushable wipe. Which, if you didn’t know, SHOULDN’T BE FLUSHED, even if the packaging says it’s fine. Apparently this kind of thing happens all the time…

Once the clog was cleared and the floor had been thoroughly mopped, things were settling back to normal. We ate dinner, did the dishes, started the laundry… and everything seemed fine.

Then the rushing water started up again.

Somewhere in all that scrambling to get draino down the pipe, something got disconnected from the washer, and when the water started to drain, there was nowhere for it to go except all over the floor.

And so, once again, I found myself cleaning up puddles from the floor, and sweeping out water. The good news was that at least this time it was soapy clean water instead of straight from the sewer!

Even though it’s all been cleaned up and sorted out, there’s still a small fear in the back of my head every time I hear water running, even if it’s just the dishwasher doing it’s job, or the toilet flushing as it should. It’ll probably take a while to figure out all the little quirks in this house, I’m sure, but in the meantime, I’m focusing on unpacking and letting Bunty chase down all the runaway spiders.