Sometimes bad days just happen.
One Christmas Eve we were coming back home late at night, happy, laughing, and looking forward to spending the holiday with more family.
We walk into our house, and all seems well. My husband decides he is going to take a quick shower. I’m bringing in our dogs from letting them pee outside and hear my husband call out to me from our bathroom. Do you know what I found when I went in?
Sewage.
Sewage covering the floor of our shower.
The smell was awful. Walking into the bedroom I could smell something pungent, but it hit full force when I entered our bathroom. He went outside and plunged the pipe outlet going into the shower, and after about five or six minutes got it to drain. Then he mopped the shower floor with bleach and called it a night. And all was well.
Until it happened again, this time in the guest shower.
Long story short, when the plumbing was originally done on our house, they put bellies in the lines, along with shoving cups down the pipes. Fortunately, it was all still under warranty.
After some finagling, the plumber and builder finally come out and decide to tunnel under the house to fix the bellies, instead of jackhammering the foundation in the living area and kitchen. The tunnel was dug, and once they said they replaced the pipes I went into the tunnel after I got off work (because it was a very narrow tunnel and my husband couldn’t fit) and took pictures of what they did. He sent them to another plumber who promptly told my husband it had been fixed incorrectly.
So he negotiated again to have it re-fixed (which you can imagine made the plumber super happy). Then I went into the tunnel again, took more pictures, and now the plumber consultant said all looked good. The tunnel was then filled in with flowable fill.
I’m glad I had been able to help, but let me tell you, I was definitely nervous crawling into that tunnel. My biggest concern was spiders (I have a big fear of them), but there was nothing living down there. I pulled my weight, even if it was a small weight.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you contribute, but that you helped move the project along. That small task might be critical for completion to happen. I did feel a little insignificant since I only crawled into the tunnel, but my husband assured me that without those pictures, we would have never known the pipes didn’t get fixed correctly on the first pass.
Your contribution matters.