jennanddave.com

I just went down into our basement and caught a whiff of something faintly foul. It's not unusual to be able to really "smell" our basement, particularly in the summer when the dehumidifier has filled up and we haven't emptied it in a few days. Lewisburg is a damp town, and if you don't keep up with it, it'll take over everything. When we were house-hunting in April 2003, we noticed that quite a few sellers would light scented candles when prospective buyers were checking out their house. At the time we wondered what other smell they were trying to cover up; now we know.

Anyway, central Pennsylvania has been the recipient of quite of bit of rain of late. Fortunately, our branch of the Susquehanna isn't flooding anywhere near the extent that it is in Wilkes-Barre. Our basement's been a little wet, but nothing more than what we usually get when it rains really hard. Dave and I have been emptying the dehumidifier around two to three times a day, whereas usually we have to empty it once. We're feeling pretty lucky considering quite a few towns only an hour east of us were being evacuated yesterday. This morning I went downstairs to see how things looked and there was that smell, only it was slightly different from the usual damp smell. I walked around the basement, nose in the air, and noticed a lone wet spot on the floor in the back of the basement. Right underneath a big white PVC pipe. A PVC pipe that connects to our second floor toilet. And the pipe had trickles of water on it. Yuck. I'm really hoping that if it is the pipe to the upstairs toilet, that it's really, really easy to fix. And I also hope that the smell doesn't waft up to the first floor. Because, you know, ewww.