Wet carpet does not make for easy breathing

Saturday morning I finally talked myself into mowing the lawns.  I got the front lawn done really quick as usual but the back took some time due to size difference and one little annoyance.  Rodent holes.  I tripped in a few and got the wheels in a few.  Soon after we moved in we started noticing dirt mounds popping up all over the yard and decided we had gophers.  I let them be all winter, but last spring we bought some electronic gopher chasers and buried them in the yard and they seamed to work.  I leveled out all the mounds and they never came back, but by the end of the season something was eating my tomatoes.  This tear there are holes everywhere!  I know we have rodents, and I suspect mice, but I'm not sure.  We have rodent chasers in the house and none of the holes are near the house thank goodness, no worries there.  I was so fed up that once I got done mowing i shoved the hose down a hole, turned it on and walked away.

Everyone stated this would flood the basement, but I was very confident that it wouldn't.  I went back outside and found all the holes int he middle of the yard to be filled to the brim with water.  I moved the hose to a hole by the garden and I spotted a little rodent dart in another hole.  I moved the hose to that one and stood there for a bit.  Pretty soon the little guy came stumbling out another nearby hole gasping.  It wasn't a mouse, it's tail was too short and too hairy and overall, it was too small.  After doing some quick google research, I found that we have a vole infestation.  Nice.  Guess what?  All the normal methods of rodent control don't work, they even ignored my peanut butter laced snap traps and flooding.  The only way to even try to keep them from destroying your yard is to till, and till everything.  Well, I have been wanting to do that anyway.

In the process of flooding, i managed to step on a bee, and since I was wearing flip flops, it swung its butt around and got me.  I'm allergic and my foot instantly started swelling, and damn bee stings just hurt like nothing else.  Andy shoved two benedril down my throat and I soon got really groggy.  Andy headed downstairs to get a shower in and yelled for me to come downstairs.  Guess what?  remember how I was confident the basement wouldn't flood?  I was wrong.  The hose had been on for several hours.  The bathroom was flooded, the furnace closet was flooded and a good portion of the family room was flooded. great.  Andy got mad and told me to never ever do that again, but we got investigating it and it was not from my flooding the tunnels out back.  The faucet to the back hose is broken.  When we turned the faucet back on, it immediately started gushing inside again.  But, thank goodness, when the hose is shut off, it stops gushing.  Well, at least we have a shop vac, but before I could do anything about it, the benedril took its toll and I was out for the count for the next several hours.  At least my foot was fine by the time I woke up.  Then I went to work cleaning up.

This is the pipe that's broken

It flooded this entire area and half the bathroom on the other side of the wall.

Anyone want a faulty water softener? LOL

This is the third time we have flooded since we moved in.  The first time was when the water softener went bad, the second is when the old water heater decided it would rather be a fountain, and now this.  The carpet and padding was so bad it filled the entire basement with a heavy mildewy moldy smell.  It was effecting both of us but Andy has been getting more and more sick as each day passes, he's allergic to both mold and mildew.  I decided today it had to come out, but I should have done it the day it happened.  I felt out the wettest spots and cut around them, anything that's left is only slightly damp at the edges.  Now my family room looks like this.

I'm hoping that once the carpet pieces dry outside, that I can at least drag them back in to cover the spots.  The padding is toast.  Its gross and slimy and very smelly.  Within a half hour the basement had breathable air again.  And, at least, if it happens again we can get the carpet out of the way really fast.