Hi, all!

We initially did bail the flooded basement in five gallon buckets-- my landlord, his brother, my husband and son were passing them up the stairs and hauling them out Johann appeared in the shape of my landlord's father with a gasoline powered pump, which got the first six inches out, but did not stop the inflow. At first we thought it was a ruptured water heater, then that it might be a water table issue. "Johann" installed a sump pump, and that kept things more or less under control.(That's an inch or two of water on the floor) Finally it was discovered to be an old water line, still used by a few families in the neighborhood, but not by us. It had opened and flooded us. This took around four days to locate and fix.

We are now nice and dry and cozy. We didn't have much stuff stored down there, and most of it was in plastic hampers.

As for being able to play *Das Boot* in our basement-- I'd really rather not!

Merry Christmas

Pat W