When It Rains, It Pours

As is probably the case with all “new home” dwellers, some things come to light about a new residence only after you’ve actually lived in the house. When we first began to clean and prepare our apartment in the month of July, a few times we came to the house we noticed some puddles on the floor after a rain, and wondered from where it was coming. Then once when the FMC team was here, our guest bathroom drain backed up and flooded the bathroom with sewer water. The mystery deepened when, after very hard rains this past Thursday and Friday, we noticed that the puddles we remembered from before were reappearing, but that the water actually seeped through the walls!? We had our suspicions, which were confirmed Friday evening as our kitchen flooded with rain-/sewer-water. Our diagnosis? A clog in the pipe that runs from the house to the nearby sewer-water drain, that, during torrential downpours (which we’ve had several lately – this is the rainy season, after all) allows rain and sewer water to back up into the pipe that leads to the guest bathroom. This means that when we get flooded, the water is coming simultaneously from the pipe in the kitchen that combines the rain spouts with the bathroom drain water, the overflow in the bathroom itself (which on a bad day flows out into the guest bedroom, down the stairs, and across the hall into the office), and leaking through the walls. Needless to say, such nastiness has significantly added to the stress level of late. Ryan figures the solution to the problem is a visit from a roto-rooter (does Cambodia have such things?) and a new pipe to redirect the rain water away from the pipe that already can’t handle its load. As of this writing, the landlady has been to the house, but the worker who does the fixing has not. Therefore, in light of said problem and the general lack of organization to our home currently, we’re waiting to post pictures of our home until a later date. Stay tuned, but hopefully the saga does not continue!
- Bethany