When It Rains It Pours!

With damage that is.
Yes we have suddenly started to get some much needed and waited for rain.
No problem there, mind you, we desperately needed it here.
However, what we didn't need was all the damage that we have had in our house over the last 3 weeks. Some from the rain and some not...!

Damage #1 - The Paddling Pool

When we returned from our holiday away over Christmas, it was stinking hot. I took one look at the garden and decided we could afford to purchase a cheap paddling pool for the boys to play in when it is so hot. So I rushed out to the shop and got a lovely little thing. We blew it up and filled it with water. The boys had a ball in it.

We made toys from sponges, just like I had read about in my Family Fun magazine. This went down well too. They got thrown about and splashed with for hours.

Unfortunately, 2 days after getting the pool,  the below picture is what we woke to one morning.

My thought, which turned out to be correct, was that a cat had got in the pool and put a claw through one of the sides whilst getting themselves out.

I tried desperately to fix it, I managed to get it to go up after finding the hole and repairing it, but sadly the next morning it was back down again. Mum and Steve even helped me 2 days later, although then we found another hole to fix. By this time I was getting frustrated with the pool and decided that it obviously was not going to survive. Hey, 2 days was pretty good, although very annoying.

Although Alex was not too worried about not having a pool, he found alternative arrangements!

Damage #2 - The Gazebo

We have a lovely paved area out the back of the house and this gets used in the summer all the time. For nearly 2-3 months we always have dinner out there in the evening. It is always so warm and cosy there. However on occasion, I have realised that it would be lovely to have a gazebo there, make the area more user friendly during the day when the sun is blazing down on us.
We found one just under 2 weeks ago and decided that in fact this was perfect. We managed to get it at half price, but even then it was expensive.
So we spent the afternoon erecting the said gazebo and glorifying in the wonderful shade we now had. We were good sensible people and tied it down with pegs and guide ropes as supplied etc.

However, several nights later we gained a lot of rain and sadly this did not go well with the gazebo.

No where on the instructions did it say it could not be up in rain, ok not a torential storm, but a little rain. If we had known some rain was going to fall during the night, then we may have considered taking it down, but a shower or two, then no. However on day 6 of having this lovely thing it sadly collapsed on us at 4am.

Now as you can see from the above pictures, the main frame of the gazebo remained standing but the above bracket in the middle of the roof had totally buckled.

So we rang the store and explained that it had colapsed and we felt this was not exceptable.

The manager agreed and put another aside for us to replace this one.

However by the time we got to the shop we had decided that in fact we did not want another. The manager had informed us that it was in fact just a light, thin, cheap alluminium gazebo that was to be taken down at the first hint of wind or rain.

We however never read anything like that on the instructions and seeing as it retailed at $400, we felt that it would have to be a little ok (remember we got it for 1/2 price).

The funny thing is, I had a feeling that it would not last and that it would be damaged before the end of the summer. I didn't however feel this would happen within a week of having it!

Damage #3 - The Boys Bedroom Ceiling

This weekend just gone, New Zealand got hit with a torential storm, ok now, nothing like our friends gained over the ditch. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, but enough to cause damage and really ruin the weekend.

I ended up sleeping in the boys room at some stage on Saturday (nothing unusual there either) and it is a blessing that I did, because this made me aware of the dripping sound that was going on in there and so therefore I was aware of how long this sound had been going on for.

Turns out we had water coming through their ceiling.

 

So a quick call to the Insurance company on Sunday morning and we are now awaiting the assessor to come and view the property to ensure no damage has been left unsorted.

Damage #4 - Bathroom Tap

So the paddling pool had died a sudden death the weekend before, the Gazebo had fallen down early hours of Saturday morning. The ceiling was leaking in the boys room 24 hours later on the Sunday morning and at 10am on the Sunday morning I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and found that the mixer tap in the bathroom would not turn properly and therefore was only allowing hot water to flow from the tap.
Now if you have ever tried to brush your teeth in hot water you will know how yucky this is. Although my other worry was that it got hot very quickly.
I am not sure how, after everything else that had happened over the 1 week period, I managed to keep a straight face as I stood there and informed Steve that now the tap was broken too!

I think he was ready to call the Estate Agent and list the house to the lowest bidder just to get away from it all. Ok, so apart from worrying about the roof, nothing else was extremely serious at all, just really annoying that everything we had dealt with was crumbling before our eyes. Seemed like everything we wanted to do was coming together really nicely but then failing at the last moment.

So we are back to using the umbrella out on the patio with the table. I have brought the boys a new pool, one with ridged sides, however the weather has been crap since then so have not actually got it out yet. A builder friend came and assessed the damage on Sunday morning and he thankfully sussed out the tap for us and also commented on what he thought should be done with the roof and ceiling.

However, as I write this post now (it has taken me 2 days to write this post!) the assessor has been to the house. He is not concerned with the ceiling in the boys room, nor the carpet, he feels things will dry out nicely, although if it rains again and more water comes through then we will have to consider taking the ceiling off in their room to see exactly what is going on, that is if a builder finds no problem with the roof.

So the sun is now shinning, there is no worry anymore and slowly everything is righting itself. The school summer holidays are almost over, 1 more week and then life goes back to normal again. Hoepfully by then our damage streak will cease to exsist!