Water water everywhere!

I came home late (23:00) yesterday from tutoring Buzz-cut nephew and Brother-in-Black and found my bathroom two inches of water. Housemate Mary was watching LifetimeTV movies, again. After noticing the flooding basement, I took a mad dash upstairs and asked her if she was aware of the overflow. She calmly relied, "yes, it has been flooding for a couple of hours" (in Vietnamese). Gosh, how I wish I have her sense of tranquility, even for a little bit so that I can "live longer". Anyhow, the water remain high right outside the bathroom door. There's a sump, but it doesn't serve to drain the water, so we have this slow flooding cesspool between the bathroom and Laid-back Mary's room. We have carpeting in the basement, so the flow was slowed down a bit.

I bolted outside in the freezing rain to get a bucket and ran inside to get plastic drinking cups so that I can deplete the water out as much as possible, manually. I shut off the water valves from the sink. I unplugged all electricals, because the last thing I want is another shock. Laid-back Mary finally joined me, and we emptied about 15 three-gallon buckets. By the 16th bucket, I was exhausted and stood back, "WTH!?" Finally, we realized that the water was oozing from the ground at a rate that alluded me from the original source (the sink pipe). Tammy came home after Mary had called her five hours ago. At this time, late in the night, neither of us are going to stop the flow. So Tammy went out to buy a pump to drain the water, genius! We took turn siphoning the water overnight, a 3-hour increment each.

I just called a YellowPage plummer to drop by today. I don't know much about water pipes, but I bet one of our water pipes is frozen and ruptured somewhere underground. The house is old. The previous owner just remodeled the surface for looks. The pipes aren't properly insulated, so that may be why we have this mess. Tammy said last winter, she experienced an overflow, but not as much as this winter.

I always imagine the worse case scenario in any dilemmas. You know, where pipes violently burst behind the wall and pass through the barriers and jab me in the heart. The hot cardiologist fails to resuscitate me. Now, that would suck! I'll stay tuned and fill you in if things gets worse. Ay yah!!