So about a month ago now, we had a clog in the sink. No biggie, a little drain-o and voila, it's fixed! . . . Or so we thought. . . until THE STENCH began. I seriously thought something must have curled up and died in our sink's garbage disposal. It smelled so bad, I can hardly describe it. I tried bleach. I put my hand down there and dug out every nasty that didn't go down the drain properly. I even tried pine-sol. But still THE STENCH remained--only now just mixed with that ammonia pine-sol stink to go with it. Yay. Finally, one evening I was washing some big bowls that had been soaking and dumped a bunch of icky water down the sink. Shortly thereafter I turned on the dishwasher and as it was running, I noticed a huge amount of water coming out from under it! Oh no, the dishwasher is leaking! . . . Or so we thought. After moving out the mysteriously flawless dishwasher, cleaning up some seriously stenchy water, drying the floor, and doing yet another load of hand-washed dishes, I came to realize . . . it wasn't the dishwasher. It was the WALL that was leaking. A plumber, Uncle Randy, and a hole beneathe the sink confirmed it. (Not to mention fully released THE STENCH with intense potency). And, this little exploration revealed yet another nasty. . . a ROYAL nasty . . . MOLD. By the way, mold was not the source of THE STENCH. I'll get to that in a moment. Just add that sicky musty smell to the list of lovely odors eking out of our kitchen! (It is my personal theory that nasty smells have a will of their own and love to creep into spaces which they then fill with stink!)
Oh, and did I mention that during all of this our nieces, Mylie and Brynlee were staying with us for a few days. . . and I was just getting over the flu . . . and Jason was laid off in January and has been job hunting (we have hopes for success soon--keep us in your prayers!!!) (Part of me also says, "thank goodness he was able to be around to help with all of this!") Anyhow, all I can say is thank heaven for sweet little girls who kept my boys soooo happy and who didn't care what my kitchen looked or smelled like.(pictures coming!) Thank heaven for paper plates and Cafe Rio gift certificates (spending money at restaurants is sooo out of the budget right now), and thank heaven for Free Pancake Day at IHOP, and THANK HEAVEN for Uncle Randy. He temporarily patched our kitchen midway through the week so I could get something cleaned and THE STENCH was at least somewhat contained behind the wall again.
So after our sweet Baker girls left, and we moved to Grandma and Grandpa MacKay's house, they ended up ripping out half of our kitchen cabinets and finding-- alot of water damage, ALOT OF MOLD, and HANDFULLS of disposal-chewed-leaked-out-of-the-pipe-ROTTING FOOD--ALAS the SOURCE of THE STENCH--
all through the wall. NASTY!!!!! Needless to say, they stripped it to the studs. The mold was so bad, they had to scrape it before they could spray treat it. Apparently there had been a slow leak and mold had been growing for years, until our little clog blew everything wide open. Thank goodness we cleared everything out of the kitchen and family room before they started, and Randy brought in a super-duper air filter thing to keep the spores and smells down.
Our landlord suggested that while they were fixing this problem, they should look into any other issues that we knew about--- aka the upstairs bathroom sewage pipe and occasional weird leaks onto the downstairs master shower (can you guess what color?--ew!!!!). We had no idea it was this bad. (see photo below.) Can we say cockroach heaven? They ended up replacing 8 FEET of rotted pipe! No wonder we were having so many problems with cockroaches on that particular side of the house--our bug man Rod was right.
Thank heaven it's getting fixed! Here's to a working kitchen, no more mystery leaks, fewer cockroaches, no more mold =healthier air =fewer colds, and
NO MORE STENCH!
The biggest THANK HEAVEN, however, goes to Grandma and Grandpa MacKay for taking us in while all of these repairs took place. What started as 3-4 days, has become 2 weeks and they have been so amazing, welcoming, and kind. I've been feeling like I'm practically on vacation--so spoiled with 3 extra pairs of hands to help with everything! And the kids have just been soaking up the extra attention, hugs, kisses, and oreo cookies with pure childhood joy! We also got to spend some time with Shannon and Kevin and baby Bella--they came for a quick weekend trip. And even Uncle Jesse came passing through.
I feel so grateful and hopeful for the future. Jason will find a job that moves him in a career promoting direction. I have no doubt. Our house will be healthier. And we will continue growing and moving forward.:) Thanks to all of you for your love and prayers! Hope you enjoyed our little adventure story and remember, if you have any mysterious leaks or American cockroaches . . . watch out, you may have THE STENCH just sneaking around in your walls, waiting to creep out!
