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Well, the "dark side" of show business reared its ugly head for us this weekend.
Several months ago we had a toilet clog up. Our local plumber didn't have a "snake" long enough to reach it, so we brought in a plumber from out of town, who fixed the problem. That was in February.
Fast forward to last week. My wife said the auditorium smelled "musty," so I immediately thought we had water in the basement under the stage. It wouldn't be the first time that happened -- when we get a lot of rain, we have a high water table around here and basements can get water in them. I checked, and sure enough, there was about 2 inches of water down there. I hooked up this little pump we have and pumped it out. Figured by the next morning the rest would have evaporated....but nope, the water had come back up, not as high as before but still about an inch or so.
So now I was thinking maybe we had a water leak in our heating system, which is in that basement, because the water coming out of my little pump was nice and clear-looking. I had a local HVAC guy come in and take a look at it, and he not only didn't find any leaks, he said "This smells more sewery than anything." I didn't think it smelled like sewer; or if it did, it was not very "bad" smelling at all. To me it just smelled like mud and dirt. So we went further back into this unused area of the basement where the swamp cooler used to be, and.... found that the main sewer pipe had come unhooked from the connection to the city's system in the alley. The alley pipe had more or less disintegrated; I'm sure it was the original pipe in the building.
We are thinking, but can't prove it, that the plumbing company who fixed the clogged toilet might have damaged that old pipe, which is very brittle, with their long snake. So for several months we've had a river of sludge pouring into that unused room of the basement. (To be fair, it may have come apart later, too.) Why it doesn't stink to high heaven is a minor miracle. I don't understand that at all. What makes it worse is, we have about 150 old theater seats in pieces laying in that room that we had no way to get rid of about 25 years ago... and the river of crap has permeated all of those old seat parts -- cushions, backs, etc. In the corner where the pipe is, it's literally about 2 or 3 inches deep in congealed turds and toilet paper. It is the worst mess I've seen in 50 years in the business.
So, today we called a disaster recovery company and our local plumber, who came in and did a fix on the leaking pipe -- so now the problem isn't getting any worse at least. The disaster people are supposed to be here Monday to pump out the sludge and I'm going to get them to haul out all the old theater seat parts too.
Ah, the glitz and glamor of showbiz. Can't beat it.
Several months ago we had a toilet clog up. Our local plumber didn't have a "snake" long enough to reach it, so we brought in a plumber from out of town, who fixed the problem. That was in February.
Fast forward to last week. My wife said the auditorium smelled "musty," so I immediately thought we had water in the basement under the stage. It wouldn't be the first time that happened -- when we get a lot of rain, we have a high water table around here and basements can get water in them. I checked, and sure enough, there was about 2 inches of water down there. I hooked up this little pump we have and pumped it out. Figured by the next morning the rest would have evaporated....but nope, the water had come back up, not as high as before but still about an inch or so.
So now I was thinking maybe we had a water leak in our heating system, which is in that basement, because the water coming out of my little pump was nice and clear-looking. I had a local HVAC guy come in and take a look at it, and he not only didn't find any leaks, he said "This smells more sewery than anything." I didn't think it smelled like sewer; or if it did, it was not very "bad" smelling at all. To me it just smelled like mud and dirt. So we went further back into this unused area of the basement where the swamp cooler used to be, and.... found that the main sewer pipe had come unhooked from the connection to the city's system in the alley. The alley pipe had more or less disintegrated; I'm sure it was the original pipe in the building.
We are thinking, but can't prove it, that the plumbing company who fixed the clogged toilet might have damaged that old pipe, which is very brittle, with their long snake. So for several months we've had a river of sludge pouring into that unused room of the basement. (To be fair, it may have come apart later, too.) Why it doesn't stink to high heaven is a minor miracle. I don't understand that at all. What makes it worse is, we have about 150 old theater seats in pieces laying in that room that we had no way to get rid of about 25 years ago... and the river of crap has permeated all of those old seat parts -- cushions, backs, etc. In the corner where the pipe is, it's literally about 2 or 3 inches deep in congealed turds and toilet paper. It is the worst mess I've seen in 50 years in the business.
So, today we called a disaster recovery company and our local plumber, who came in and did a fix on the leaking pipe -- so now the problem isn't getting any worse at least. The disaster people are supposed to be here Monday to pump out the sludge and I'm going to get them to haul out all the old theater seat parts too.
Ah, the glitz and glamor of showbiz. Can't beat it.
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