The Paulsens' Christmas vacation was a memorable one this year. Aside from Laurie coming down with a minor flu bug (and spending a couple of days lying around on the couch, enjoying the Wheatleys' wonderful video collection of "All Creatures Great and Small"), and a snowstorm interfering with New Year's Day dinner plans with friends, the toilet in the upstairs bathroom somehow started leaking and flooded the entire bathroom floor up there, without Eric or Laurie knowing about it. And it didn't stop there.

It happened one morning while Laurie was sitting in the office doing something on the computer, when she started hearing water running on the other side of the house, and thought Eric was doing the dishes or something. Then she started hearing water running in the living room and she jumped up and ran in there, to find water pouring down through the ceiling in front of the bookshelves. In spite of the calamity unfolding, it struck Laurie as funny that their kitty Emily was calmly sitting in the rocking chair, apparently undisturbed by the water dripping down on either side of her. Laurie wondered if the roof were leaking or something, but that didn't make sense, since that part of the living room ceiling isn't directly under the roof, and it wasn't raining at the moment, either. Laurie went to go find Eric, who was innocently eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, and said (trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice), "Something very strange is going on."

Eric and Laurie quickly discovered that water was also coming down through the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom and was flooding that area, so they raced upstairs to see what was causing it. Finding the upstairs bathroom and walk-in closet completely flooded, with several inches of water on the floor, apparently coming from the leaking toilet, Eric hurried over to shut off the water to the toilet, nearly killing himself slipping on the wet tile. Meanwhile, Laurie grabbed every towel they own and hurriedly started trying to sop up all the water. Going back downstairs to start cleaning up the mess down there, they quickly realized that the light fixtures in the bathroom downstairs had become dangerously wet, including one over the shower that had completely filled with water. Of course Eric wasted no time in getting the electricity shut off. A few minutes later, the couple discovered that water had also started leaking down into the basement, although thankfully the water had been shut off before it had a chance to affect that area very much.

Amazingly, after a day spent cleaning up the mess and drying things out, it was found that very little permanent damage had actually been done, aside from a water stain on the living room carpet. Eric and Laurie are very thankful that they were both home when it happened .... if it had happened when they were getting ready to leave the house and be gone for the day or something, what a horrible mess they would have come home to!!

"Never a dull moment around the Paulsen place!"

Editorial Information

Reporter: Laurie Paulsen Connection:Laurie & Eric are the editors of the Grizzly Flat Gazette, and local residents.

Next Story