The infestation...

The place was dimly lit and I needed some more light to see what I was doing. I went back inside the house and brought out my standing lamp that has three swiveling lights that you can point in any direction. I knew there were bugs and spiders around the place because of the larger cobwebs that were easy to spot and due to the fact that the place had been shut up for quite awhile. So I connect my extension cord to the lamp and run it over to the outlet screwed into an over hanging rafter next to the wall. It wasn't till I turned it on that I saw how close my face was to some black widows webs and their "leftovers". I quickly scanned the light around the room and every few feet was another web with a big fat black widow on it. I was outnumbered. I did a quick estimate considering how many crawlies I had already seen out in the open and the size of the place and decided to let them have the garage. I had paused just for a second wondering how many of them I could kill if I were to take them all on, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. So, yeah, our garage, which I was hoping to turn into a little gym, is infested. :(

The Flood. Part 1

So I know it has been awhile and to be exact its been 3 and a half months since I have last written. So many things have happened since. I will spare you the details and just say that I have moved twice since I last wrote and just last night was connected to the internet. The move from Manassas was a chore. With some help and an unexpected Uhaul truck, all my stuff was moved over to a house in Arlington. It was a nice house and I was on a month to month basis with no contract, cheap rent, and in the basement bedroom. Over the course of the next week, during the evenings after work, I began the painful process of unpacking. Most of the boxes had been put in the entry level and I began hauling them down to my room and setting up shop. One Saturday I spent most of the day cleaning and unpacking and finally finished just before bed. It felt so good to get settled again. Little did I know how long, or short I should say, it would last. Sunday was a little stormy and the rain kept falling and falling. I went to bed that night to the sound of rain glad to be nice and cozy in my warm, dry pull out bed. Sometime around 3am I awoke very thirsty. As tempting as it was to just fall back asleep, my thirst drove me out of bed. As I swung my legs off the side of the bed and let them touch the floor I felt a cold wetness surround them. I thought I was dreaming again. Then I thought I had spilled the large cup of water I bring with me to bed oftentimes. The coldness of the water I was now standing in brought me fully awake and I sloshed to go turn on the light. My room was a lake. A good two inches deep I quickly started moving books and things off of the lower bookshelves up onto the bed. Once everything was safe from water damage for the time being I set off to find the cause of the deluge. The adjacent laundry room was also flooded and water was flowing in around the outside door from the back stairwell. I woke up my roommates and we tried to unclog the drain at the bottom of the stairwell that would allow the water to drain but to no avail. 3:30 in the middle of the night and we're standing outside in our pj's in the rain with a head flashlight trying to figure out what to do. After making sure anything that was salvable was safe, I ended up sleeping on the couch the rest of the night. Two hours later I was up getting ready for work to the sound of rain. The water level was now at 4 inches. A quick calculation using the rate of rising water and how long I would be gone at work told me that if it continued to rain, and not drain, the water level would overflow the shower lip in the bathroom and begin to drain before I returned home from work. Drip, drop, drip, drop....