Because you’re a close reader of this column, memorizing your favorite passages and quoting them at fashionable cocktail parties, you’ll recall that we had some water in our basement, around the time that our washing machine was on the verge of joining the Big Appliance Store in the Sky.  It did not seem like a leap of logic to decide these two things were related, especially because the washer had gotten to the point where it sounded like a 737 was landing in the basement while my undies were on Final Spin.  Also, water was trickling out from underneath it.

So when the burly appliance delivery people carried our old washing machine up the basement stairs, it seemed like our wading days were over.  The new machine is silent as a whisper as it spins, and it plays a jaunty tune when it finishes.  I can upload special wash cycles from my smartphone, if I could figure out a revolutionary way to de-stink my son’s baseball socks and I chose to read the 34-page owner’s manual.  Anyway, after I Shop-Vacked all the leftover water, all seemed well in the washing machine-dry basement floor dynamic.

For a day or two.

I was sitting in my living room recliner when I heard the sump pump kick on.  I kind of like the sump pump, partially because I enjoy any household device with an internal rhyme and partially because the word “sump” amuses me.  It sounds like an abbreviation for “something” employed by a crusty old pump-maker (“We gon’ build you a pump to get sump off your floor.”). 

The pump cycled on and off, as it does. In the following hour or two, it cycled again.  And again.  And again.  Over the following weeks, the sound of the sump pump totally eclipsed the landing 737 in the list of Unfortunate Sounds Coming from the Basement. 

It wasn’t just the sound of the sump pump, though.  Water started appearing in strange places, the level rising without any obvious catalyst (rain, wet garments thrown down the stairs, excessively long showers).  It appeared in corners, strew a brownish residue on the floor, puddled underneath the hot water heater as it made its way to the sump pump, and rose next to… the stairwell.

Underneath our stairwell is a rock.  A boulder, really.  A rock large enough that we have concluded that the house was built around it.  Meaning that there isn’t a floor underneath it, and groundwater can easily seep upward and form the North Country’s newest pond.  I ran the Shop Vac a half-dozen times and the basement floor would dry, sometimes for 10 or even 15 minutes before the same pond would form to the same depth.

So we flagged down the masonry guy who was working on a neighbor’s house and had him come check out our situation. He stopped by and agreed that this was probably more water than we would want on our basement floor.  He thought the brown stuff on the floor was a bit perplexing, reaching down and tasting some on his hand, like Sonny Crockett investigating a South American drug ring on “Miami Vice.” He checked out our house’s exterior, which does include a slope from the yard next door and a roof that drips directly next to the foundation.

He suggested adding new gutters, and building swales and a valley which would collect the water and drain it in the backyard, near an underperforming maple tree.  It seemed like a solid plan, except for the part where we still have to pay for our daughter’s college tuition and eat breakfast. 

So we started looking for DIY solutions that would do the trick, such as digging our own French drain or never using the basement again, ever.  But in the meantime, the water has receded, as mysteriously as it appeared.  The floor is dry, and the basement is again safe for our usual activities, such as doing laundry and removing dead mice.  The DIY French drain project might still happen this summer, or we might move on to other priorities, especially if the dryer starts making noises.

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