Underground living, now with more suck!

When we began the house-buying process almost a year ago we were really nervous about only one thing. Moisture. A friend of mines father, who is a realtor, gave us stern warnings. He told us to walk away from this place and walk away quick.

In the course of our due diligence (paranoia) we had the house inspected twice. First, by a drooling, toothless yokel and then by 'the Fennucci brothers'. Their name wasn't Fennucci, but it could have been. They were great. Very thorough and very cool. They even gave us snacks! But they pointed out to us that there was no absolute way to be sure that our home would remain water tight. Underground houses are impossible to inspect on the outside and it is a 20 year old home.

We knew there was a very small leak near the back of the house where a short passage leads to our garage. In early December we had a guy we call 'mumbles' come over and fix it, and yes, he dug up part of our roof. He found and fixed the problem and in general cleaned up the area and improved its drainage.

One month later and we find water coming in from behind the cedar lining of our bedroom closet. There was only one way to see how bad it was, so three days ago I went in with a hammer. What I found wasn't pretty. I can't even bring myself to post a picture, it was THAT scary. The wall looked like it belonged in a Turkish prison.

Several hours of scraping cleaned the area up and exposed a very small crack. It convinced us that we need to do repairs to this part of the house from the outside. The leaking might never have been noticed if not for the unbelievable amount of rain we've been getting here. It just won't stop. The property is waterlogged. If and when it stops and the wall dries out I will paint it with a special waterproof paint. But we really do need to find the source of the water and correct the drainage.

Overall the leak is far smaller than other leaks I've had over the years. The old house we had on lorain road in North Olmsted years ago once flooded to almost 8 inches. And I do not regret getting Bag End. It's just another fun facet of home ownership. Joy.

***UPDATE***

So I gues what we really needed here in Ohio was more Goddamn rain. It went on all night and through the morning. Small rivers formed in the back yard. The tiny creek behind the pond was now about a class three rapid. I attempted to patch over the crack using a quick setting cement that said it could plug leaks, even under pressure. This did not seem to happen. Water just kept coming. Eventually the rain stopped, the temp went to 60 and the fucking sun made an appearence. The leak seems to have eased up, but not to worry, there's more rain expected tomorrow, followed by Snow,Ice Giants and then, I believe, swarms of locusts.