Vindicated

This post was going to be about the broken front door lock, the broken boiler, the wall sconces we picked out that won't work and the ongoing work of the electrician now that he's on site again. Instead it's going to be about vindication.

Often times I have seen that word expressed with a sense of satisfaction or glee. Such as "His assertions of innocence were vindicated when the true assailant confessed." When we moved into the house, I was fairly adamant about putting anything in the basement off of the ground if it was wood, cardboard or paper. Items were placed on bricks or on top of the plastic totes the majority of our stuff is stored in.

Ms. Huis thought I was being paranoid, but she humored me. There are thunderstorms in Wisconsin today and so far we've received about 1/2 inch of rain. For anyone who knows this part of the country, this is unheard of for the 7th of January. Honest to goodness rain with lightning and thunder. Wow. Where are the global warming nay sayers now?

Anyway, rain and frozen ground means that the water really has nowhere to go. It will puddle and flow away into streams and rivers, rather than soaking into the ground. Now if there happens to be a large pile of snow blocking the flow of water away from a house, then of course, the water will flow towards the house. And into the basement.

I haven't seen it yet, but according to Ms. Huis, we have a sizeable leak into the root cellar of the house. (The word "rivulets" was used along with the phrase "Shooting out"). Large enough to require shop vacuuming. Thanks to my paranoia, all of our important stuff was off of the ground. It's not surprising that there was a leak, because there is a crack around the window that needs patching. It's not huge, maybe just 1/16th of an inch, but its plenty big for a pool of water to drain into.

This isn't the end of the world. It's just annoying. We should be able to fix the problem by sloping the ground away from the house, filling the crack with concrete and maybe even installing a french drain.

I guess I have been vindicated, although I wish I hadn't been.