In all of the pictures I’ve posted about my house I have refrained from posting any of my basement. Why? Because I hate it. Just the thought of going down there increases my level of stress and frustration. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the foundation has a leak in it and until things dry up, we can’t fix it.

If I had known how bad it leaked then I would have insisted that we fix it this past summer. Now I am stuck dealing with the constant puddle of water in the basement. We haven’t had the typical snowy, frozen winter so I’ve had a LOT of water down there. The bad thing is that where there is water and moisture, there is mold. *sigh* Not good for a person with environmental allergies. Anyway, the cats don’t seem to mind it. In fact, I think that they consider it to be their own play cave.

Bob didn’t expect me to take his picture. Can you tell?

I’ll show you from where he had just come… are you ready for this? Are you sure? Maybe you should go get something strong to drink. I know that I’m going to.

Ugh… the shuddering is starting. Are you sure you want to go down there? Maybe we could do this some other time. No? *sigh* FINE!

Lovely, isn’t it? Do you like my puddle of water? It’s not very large today. Yes, the stuff is moved away from the wall because of the puddle. This is what I see when I get down at the bottom of the stairs. Then I turn the corner.

Okay, to be fair I told my uncle that he could leave the weight-lifting stuff there until he found a place where he could have it set up. Of course, part of the deal is that I can use it in the meantime. Yeah… once I get the place cleaned up so that I can actually have ROOM to use it!

A lot of this stuff was my grandma’s. Apparently my relatives felt that I might want some or all of it. Yep. Because I can use it. GRRR.

All of those black plastic bags on the shelf are appliances. There’s a food processor (I already own one), a deep fryer (can’t use it because it’s contaminated) and a George Foreman grill. That’s not counting all of the other miscellaneous things on that shelf. Oh, and to the right you will see the manual treadmill that it was thought that I might want. Yeah… thanks.

Over in the corner is the work bench. And to the right is a shelf full of Christmas stuff. That was left for me as well. Oh goody.

This is where I promised Jay that he could eventually set up his trains. That is, after my aunt fetches her pile of stuff on the right. Supposedly that will be out of there this spring. Then I have all of these chairs and boxes of miscellaneous stuff to go through. The boxes on the table are kitchen items that I have boxed up for the refugees. I have to get those over to Jay’s mom at some point. Have you had enough? Or do you want the full tour?

Here’s the middle of the basement. There are those chairs I was talking about, plus my furnace in the background. Oh, and the white metal cabinet that used to be in the bathroom. No idea what I’m going to do with that, but it has to be in the middle so that it doesn’t get wet. See the white garbage can to the left of the cabinet? I opened that up to discover that it was full of plastic tea bottles. The City picks up recyclables every Monday morning. I have no idea why these never made it to the curb.

Now can you see why I’m a bit frustrated? I would be happy if I could just get it to stop leaking! I want to be able to use my basement. I’m so tired of battling the mold. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed your tour. I know that eventually it will look a lot nicer. Maybe.
And here is the last picture that I have to share. To the left is my aunt’s pile of crap. I am standing right where I had envisioned that Jay’s trains would go. You cas see the stairs in the background. And yet another metal cabinet that I had to pull away from the wall.