Yucky!

The above is a picture of our view right off our front porch. We have a broken sewer pipe! YUCKY!!

We have been having some drainage issues lately that Drain-o wasn't working on...noticed mainly with the sinks. And then last Sunday while doing aundry our toilets made this crazy glugg sound a few times and then all the water drained out of them. Strange we thought. Well, this morning after Drew used the potty, I noticed that it wasn't flushing. So I tried using the plunger...not a lot of luck....I eventually got it out, but it was going down VERY slowly. Then I went to check the toilet in the master bathroom....it was doing the same thing! Back to Drew's bathroom and I noticed that it was coming back up into the tub. YUCK!!! Checked, and the same thing happened in the shower and the tub in the master bathroom. So I checked the downstairs bathroom....that toilet worked fine. Upon return back to the main level, I notice that when I flushed the downstairs toilet it had caused LOTS of stuff to back up into the tubs and shower upstairs.

Of course we call a plumber. They came over about an hour ago and I explained what was happening, they looked downstairs and said that our lift pump was allowing the downstairs one to work ok. So they head back out the front door and the boss asks if the corner behind the bushes has always been sunk in like this. NO WAY! It is REALLY sunk in (bye bye lilies of the field, they had been swallowed up by the whole). So they started digging down in there a bit....and explain that they thing there must be a broken pipe down there. Sure enough...evidently the coupler has been leaking (along with poor drainage in the area and poor prep. of the ground) and the water caused the ground to cave in on the sewer pipe. They are going to need a backhoe to get to it so right now we are left with a big whole until 9am tomorrow. There was a bush really close to the edge of the whole that they were trying to work around, and John told them if it would make it easier on them to go ahead and take it out since we were thinking of taking it out anyway....well that bush is no longer and it is a good possibility more might go the same way tomorrow when they have to get the backhoe in there (can pretty well guarantee our big holly bush will be gone). That is a tough way for me to get a new flower bed done out front. We are thinking that this will add up to over $1,000...but when John talked to them before they left today, the plumber said they could go ahead and agree upon on $650 for the whole repair. Thankfully not as bad as we first though. There goes my hopes of replacing our couch though - lol. Oh the joys of owning a home!