US Journal
Thursday, January 9,
2014
A Tale of Woes and
Friendships
You won’t get pictures with this journal entry. Use your
imagination to put the story in your mind and heart.
Yesterday started out beautifully! Finally, the severe
sub-freezing weather was on its way out. It would be 42 degrees, and the sun
was shining.
Our friend Jimmy was to bring us eggs midday from his
wonderful chicken farm, on his way to his other job at close by Emory
University; and we hoped that he would stay for lunch. He’s wonderful, and we
have wanted to get to know him and his family better for a while. Besides, we thought
it would be an enjoyable way to thank him for delivering our eggs!
Then, there was a knock at the door. 9:42AM? Could it be
Jimmy here so early? No, it was our cleaning lady Luciana, whom we had expected
at 1PM. She was so sorry, but Kim our neighbor in our complex where she was
supposed to clean in the morning had a busted water pipe, and could she clean
our house first? Kim was hoping her house would be available for cleaning later
in the day. EEK! Of course you can clean here now, Luciana.
The cleaning ladies did their wonderful job. Then, we
learned that another neighbor had busted pipes and their heater on the blink
the day before, so I went to see if they needed a place to stay. Keri was home
and described a scenario that is a homeowner’s nightmare; but, fortunately
another neighbor offered for her, her husband and their 1 year old to stay with
them the night before, and now everything was fixed. Ahhh! At least it ended well!
Just then, I got a call from Jimmy. He was parked at our
garage door with our eggs. I left Keri and hurried back to Jimmy to let him in
the house. He’s so kind to bring the eggs to us this time; and yes, he did have
time to stay for lunch. We were so glad to have that extra time to spend with
him. After a wonderful meal together, Peter walked him down to his car to
go on his way to Emory, just 3.5 miles away.
Within a few seconds, I got a frantic call from Peter.
“Colleen, there’s water coming out from under Nancy’s (another neighbor) garage
AND when I went around the house to knock on the door, no one answered AND
there was water coming out from under the front door, too! Call Nancy or find
someone that might know how to reach her. I’m going to get Greg to help me
figure out how to turn off the water to this townhome!”
Talk about immediate adrenalin rush! I looked everywhere I
knew to look for Nancy’s phone number, because she was the very first person we
had ever met when we looked at our townhome to buy. She was THE REASON that we
had decided we wanted to live in this neighborhood, but I hadn’t put her
number in my phone. I quickly called our precious, nextdoor neighbor Tricia,
who immediately said that she had Nancy’s number at work. I got a call back in
less than a minute. “Nancy’s on her way home. She’ll be here in 15 minutes.”
Peter and Greg had by then found the turn off valve for
Nancy’s house, and Peter took his crowbar and pried up a little more of the
garage door. Water flushed out.
By the time Nancy arrived, several of the neighbors were
gathered around. We learned that our other nextdoor neighbor Melissa had had a
water main break the day before; AND, the 4th and 5th
grade school in Decatur had evacuated all of their students because of water
pipes bursting! Our neighborhood was definitely not alone in our water woes.
When Nancy opened the door to the garage and the front door,
we could see water in every crevice! It had definitely been there long enough
to creep up the walls, too. Peter immediately went to get his Shop Vac and
spent the next 3 hours trying to get all the water up. The floors were
hardwood, but he wasn’t sure they would survive, and there was a utility room
where the hot water heater was that had too small of a space for the Shop Vac
to get in. We brought over a fan for that room. Kim, who sent away the cleaning
ladies earlier in the day, was still waiting for her plumber to arrive and
offered to share him with Nancy if she wanted. Fortunately though, he came soon
after that and determined that Nancy’s problem was more complicated than he
could address. He turned out to be a handyman, not a certified plumber.
So, Peter gave Nancy our plumber Jerome’s number. He was 2
hours away, with 2 more stops to make but would get here as soon as he could. The water was turned off in
all of the wet houses, so we waited for Jerome to arrive. Nancy’s husband Dave
had arrived by then, so he and the rest of us proceeded to take everything that
was on the floor outside. Thank God for sunshine!
Another neighbor Michelle came home in her car and stopped
to see what was happening. She gave condolences to Nancy and Dave for all the
trouble they were having. Within an hour, we found water coming out from her
garage, too! We knew the routine by then, so Peter and Greg went to help her husband Bryan at their house.
By then, the rest of us were paranoid. Who’s next? However,
what we were finding was that none of these wet houses had the appropriate
insulation around their pipes. We told them that our fantastic realtor Thomas
McCullough had told us that he had learned from Greg (our knowledgeable Homeowner’s
Association president who had warned the homeowners about this serious concern)
that some of the homes didn’t have the correct insulation if the weather got
really cold, so we had done that in our house as soon as we moved in. Thank you
for getting that information to us, Thomas; and thank you for connecting us
with Jerome, too! He was marvelous. When Jerome showed up, there were 4
homeowners waiting to ask for his help. He stayed and worked his wonders until
every one of the breaks was replaced. He then promised to come back the next
day to do repairs with materials he didn’t have in his truck at the time. He
was GREAT!
In the mean time, Peter made a run to Lowe’s and got enough
insulation for the 4 houses where Jerome had made the repairs. By the time he
returned, we had moved the things we took outside back into the dry garage, and
we were lounging in Nancy’s garage on the couch, drinking wine and eating
apples that I had brought in my need to make sure everyone was fed. Peter went with the owners
to each one of the repaired homes to install the insulation around the pipes.
By the time we all left, Nancy and Dave were calling him “St. Peter!”
As I said to Nancy and Dave, “We learned a long time ago
that in order to have good neighbors, we have to be good neighbors!” It was a
day of working together and accomplishing essential tasks within a great
neighborhood. We have definitely made the right choice in our purchase in
Winnona Park Place. I hope this day convinced you, Nancy, how much we
appreciate that first welcoming, enthusiastic conversation with you that led us
to want to be a part of this caring and close community! Thank you so very much!
Colleen
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