This rain has got to end. I've been a slave to my basement all day! Here's the routine: lay down rolled up towels on the floor under the basement window. Check on them after a half hour or so. Wring them out into the sump well, then put them in a plastic bag and lay down dry towels. Wait till I have 4-5 soaked ones, then carry that very heavy load of them upstairs and put them in the washing machine on the spin cycle, then into the dryer. Vacuum out dirt from the washer and dryer in-between loads. Every now and then go out in the rain with a bucket and bail out the 'lake' in the back yard that the sump pump empties out to. Can I say WAHHH?


I thought the big problem was that the gutters above the window were overflowing. It just might be that the ground is so saturated that the water has no place else to go. Or, it might have to do with waterproofing of the foundation. I don't know...not my area of expertise. All I know is that I'm tired of doing this, but don't know what else to do. I decided to spin the last load of towels twice through the cycle. The dryer made a terrible noise, and when I lifted the lid, the barrel wasn't spinning. I'm so afraid my almost 15-year-old dryer might be broken. I'll be switching out the towels soon, so I'll see.

Update: I just came up from a *hopefully* successful mission. I brought my shovel and gardening gloves outside. I shoveled the dirt and grass away from the foundation, and lo and behold, the water filled up the space. I decided to shovel a channel from the corner of the house out to the yard, and the water was channeled away from the house! I lined the channel with garden edging. The water stopped coming into the basement immediately. I just set up a fan to try to dry that area. I'm so hopeful! I took all the towels away and I'll go down in a minute or two to check.

Here's my handiwork. The grass is torn up, butI think it's working!

I laid down 14 towels just to be on the safe side. I'll check on it first thing in the morning. Then I'll check the dryer. For now, I'm going to bed!