My House flooded! I blame the ducks!

[nettie]

The other day I was sitting at my sewing machine when I hear this noise coming from my hallway... I get up to investigate and find that water is pouring quite fast out of the track lighting (While it was on! ah!) So I put a bucket down and think it's probably the tub upstairs. My ducks live inside and get a bath every night, so I'm assuming the tub leaked when it was draining (we had a slight problem with the tub leaking a little before). I go upstairs to get a towel...

I go upstairs and see that the tub that I thought was leaking was already drained and dry. The ducks are already done preening and back in their pen. I go to the other tub just to check, when I notice water pouring out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. I check the tub but it is empty... I was so confused!

So I scream to Joe (aka, Duck_feeder) to come help sop up the water, and noticed I hear it running but don't see where it's coming from. I check the toilet, but it's not running or overflowing...

I go grab towels and Joe runs upstairs to help... when he notices the problem... We have a two-way shower head that either sprays form the wall mount, or it can be redirected to a hand held shower head. The shower was on, and switched to the hand held.... But the tub was dry right? the Handle was OUTSIDE of the tub, hidden under the shower curtain. We normally place it outside of the tub because the ducks are scared of it. But how it got LEFT ON while someone just walked away, I'll never know....

So the water shot directing from the hand held, into the air duct for the forced air AC/heat.... Then it proceeded to fill up my ceiling above the front room.... We got downstairs just in time to see a massive bubble forming in the paint above, and to get the 5 gallon bucket to catch the water... We collected over 20 gallons of water from the various conduit and holes in the ceiling! Of course this comes at a time while we are re-painting and remodeling our entire downstairs area.... Now I'm gonna have to have my ceiling downstairs fixed and completely repainted! UGH!

And I can so for sure, it was not my fault! lol. I was downstairs the entire time working on sewing projects while Joe and my mom (who comes over to help me with house stuff when I get really busy with work. She does maid stuff for me, and I pay her cell phone bill, lol, it works out nicely), took care of the duck's shower/bath and their treats.... I think it was a combination of two separate people trying to take care of the duck's night time chores, and forgetting to turn off the water....

Like I said, I blame the ducks.... demanding showers and luke warm baths... lol. Spoiled punkies they are. Of course after we put them to bed, you could hear them "laugh-quacking" at us from upstairs in their room while we mopped.

 

[duckyfromoz]

Oh dear..I hope it doesnt blow your redocorating budget too much .... But at least you werent flooding out a downstairs neighbour... That would have added a lot of embarrassment to the terrible situation.

 

[nettie]

I can imagine going to a neighbor who's house I flooded saying, "Sorry about that, my ducks flooded the place taking a shower... I'll talk to them about that..." LOL!

 

[duckyfromoz]

At least you didnt have to deal with mud!!!!! I left the hose running once in the kiddy pool out in the back yard.... The ducks had a ball....they werent swimming so much- But sure needed a bath after playing in all the mud.

 

[Duck_feeder]

we have a mud problem too in our little backyard. The ground is mostly clay and packed really hard so water takes forever to drain. A little bit of rain and we get a giant mud hole... You can imagine what happens when you drain a big kiddie pool back there... I ended up digging up an area about 10x12 feet and 4-6 inches deep (5 hours of back breaking work). Then I refilled it with a mixture of the clay-like dirt, sand, pea gravel, and landscaping mulch to make that area drain better. It's at least 30 cubic feet of decent drainage and assuming it can hold about 7 cubic feet of water, that's about 50 gallons of water... nowhere near near to drain the pool

I have to use a submersible pump to drain the pool while watering all the nearby plants (including the bushes in the common area on other side of the fence

)

 

[tia]

Oh my goodness - that sounds like a real mess to clean up. Hope it isn't too big of a job. I was feeling bad cause I walked outside to talk to neighbors yesterday and left the faucet in my sink running - and came back to and inch of water on the kitchen floor. Now I see it could have been much worse. Those crazy ducks - and aren't they worth it all though???? : )

 

[ranchhand]

One more reason to leave nature as God meant it to be.

Good luck with the cleanup and repairs, will homeowner's insurance cover all that?

My 4 ducks could destroy the house in a heartbeat, which is why they went out to a big pen at 2 weeks.
That, and the fact that visitor's kept wondering about the smell. No matter how much I cleaned, other people could smell a funky odor.

Be very careful that the mold and mildew are eliminated. It's really hard to find it all.

 

[Duck_feeder]

Quote:
If all of mankind did that, we'd still be hunters and gatherers.

Quote:
Between the daily cleanings, 2 air filters with activated charcoal, several boxes of baking soda strategically placed, a few air fresheners, and giving the ducks their own room you can't smell the ducks unless the bedroom door is open and even in the room it just smells like sawdust.

Be very careful that the mold and mildew are eliminated. It's really hard to find it all.

pretty much going to have to tear up the ceiling to treat it with fungicide...​

 

[littleduckfl]

I had a minor flood in the house because of the duck, too. He got out in a major downpour that flooded the street. I ran out of the house, with door open, to look for him. You can't believe how mad DH was. The duck was fine, Pergo not so good. If you don't have one already, you might want to consider a dehumidifier. It will take out a lot of water in the air and help with mold and mildew behind the walls. It is also a lot cheaper to run then the A/C. They have ones that filter the air and the water that comes out. You can reuse this water for the garden or even use it for the water that you put the cleaning solution in. I won't use it for the ducks but I'm really cautious about my baby.

 

[Duck_feeder]

we have a dehumidifier running 24/7 right now. Not going to bother with getting one with a filter since we already have 4 hepa filter air cleaners throughout the house and a good filter for the A/C intake