Surprise #2: Flood

Us females arrived after the downstairs air conditioner had been sorted out and the guys had started to assemble the IKEA furniture that had arrived that day. It was about dinnertime, so we headed to the Caribbean restaurant down the street. Just after we ordered, the car shipping company called and said the car was ready to be picked up. My husband and mother in law left to take care of that while the rest of us waited for the food. 

When they returned, my husband and mother in law were talking about the light rain starting, but no one thought much of it and we all started eating. After a little while heard the thunder of water on the roof. It was raining buckets. My mother in law started and said "I think I left the window of the car open". I demanded the keys and went running out in the pouring rain. Luckily, the window of the car was closed, so the car was fine. But I was drenched. I looked like I had jumped into a swimming pool with my clothes on. 

I walked back to the restaurant, figuring I couldn't get much wetter. The streets had turned into mini rivers and there were big lakes forming at the corners of intersections. Being from California, I had not seen rain like this many times in my life. Now I've seen it a couple times, having been in DC for a couple weeks and experiencing a couple awesome thunder storms.

I went down to the basement when we got home and discovered the house's surprise #2, we had a lake down there where it ought to have been dry and in fact was dry earlier in the day (my husband and father in law had checked). We discovered that the main culprit for the flooding was a clogged drain by the walkout door to the basement, accompanied by a thrashed basement door that is clearly not water tight. The drain can be cleared and the door replaced, so not too big a worry. But there is some repeated water damage on the wood in the basement that may need some attention.