Wow. I was out of town for a few days, and when I returned, the landscape had been transformed. Many waterfowl and songbirds had returned, and the snow had largely melted away. I thought that was a good thing—until I ventured into the basement.

When I first saw the basement after MAL moved here, I wondered about the origins of some dark reddish spots on the basement floor. It clearly wasn’t paint, and didn’t resemble any sort of typical spill pattern. Not coming up with a suitable explanation, I forgot about them. But now I’m pretty sure I know their origin.

The landlady did a very good job of covering the walls with water–resistant paint. I have never seen any water seeping in on any wall, nor even a hint of mold on them. However, the concrete floor was left untreated. And the water table in this area is normally high. You can see where I’m heading, I’m sure ... with all the snow that’d accumulated now melting rapidly, the water table has risen a lot. Enough for the pressure to push water through the concrete of the basement floor in some spots—and at a pretty good clip, too.

The good news is that the water seepage is limited to various spots, rather than the entire floor. More good news is that MAL, forward-thinker that he is, bought a lot of shelving so that nearly all of the stuff that shouldn’t get wet was already off the floor.

The bad news is that the water is coming in fast enough for us to watch it percolate up. Overnight, enough accumulates that by the time we’ve sucked up all the standing water throughout the basement, it is already starting to pool in the areas we vacuumed first. So for the past few days, on top of trying to catch up from being out of town, trying to get back to move preps, and trying to write, I’ve been vacuuming water off the basement floor about every hour or two during the day. You can imagine what the constant interruptions are doing to my train of thought.

The really bad news is that we are currently getting another dumping of snow. Accumulations of 6–9 inches are expected. And daytime temperatures over the next several days are going to get above freezing, so there’s no end in sight. Welcome to spring!