lessons from a flooded, moldy basement

It started with a smell. Sort of like cooked broccoli. Maybe a little rotting food (even though eating is not allowed in the basement playroom) or maybe a dead rodent (we have had two indoor bat incidents, afterall). But our busy lives precluded a full investigation until we lived with the smell for four, maybe five days. That's when Andrew went into the finished part of our basement to look for the culprit. Next thing I know he's bringing up everything and throwing it on the curb. Singlehandedly, that blessed man carried up every basement item, including carpet and padding. From what we can piece together, water seeped in through a foundation leak during a torrential downpour two weeks ago. The leak was behind drywall and was soaked up by the foam sectional in that part of the room. Then it spread through the carpet padding to cover the whole room. And sat unnoticed for more than a week. Our attention quickly turned to mold remediation, salvaging, purging, waste removal and dehumidifiers. Our garage is packed to the gills. Our living room and dining room became a giant storage area. Not the week we were expecting.

But in the midst of this major inconvenience, I have discovered some important truths. Here are a few:

:: Even if you think you don't have a lot of stuff, you have too much stuff. And you never really know that until you empty your basement storage room - you know, things you hardly ever or never use - into the main part of your house.

:: 20-year-old work files that you have never looked at probably will not be needed again. Although interesting to peruse, the files just need to be trashed. Life is short. Our recycling bin will be overflowing next week.

:: Storing five broken printers is just stupid or lazy. To our credit, we did not want to put them in a landfill. However, jamming them into a storage room is not a terrific alternative. Five minutes of investigating has uncovered the joyous fact that Best Buy will recycle any and all electronics, including our large humidifier. Also broken. Also stored.

:: After many years of collecting, 2,000+ corks need to be crafted. And, no, we did not drink all the wine.

:: It takes a lot of self-control not to do things the easy (read: wrong) way. I could dump 10 boxes of paper at the curb for recycling without removing the hundreds of paperclips and binder clips. That would be easy. Or I could spend the time to pull them all out. That would be right.

:: Losing a basket of favorite stuffed animals was heartbreaking, until they were gone. Seeing the wet, smelly animals and hearing that they were headed for the trash, led to a sobfest. Now that the deed has been done, no one seems to care anymore. On the other hand, no one played in the basement for weeks BF (before flood). Not that it's "gone," both boys are dying to have the playroom back.

:: The big pile of mulch in the driveway can sit there another week. Or two. Or five. I hate looking at it, as I'm sure do my neighbors, but paper shredding, paperclip removing and basement scrubbing will probably come first.

:: Never underestimate the stamina, patience and sheer determination of your spouse. After 72 hours of non-stop lifting, ripping, moving, sorting and cleaning, the man is napping. I'd say he deserves it.

:: All in all, it's just stuff. The couch, the bean bag chair, the carpet, the house. No matter what happens to our stuff, we may be inconvenienced. We may have to work hard to clean it up. But it doesn't hurt us. It makes us desire less. Less stuff. Cause it's just stuff. Here's hoping we remember this truth.