Burning Down the House
At about 11pm last night, while sitting on the living room couch, I smelled something. Not a strong odor - but a light, sweet, rubbery scent that barely caught my nose's interest. At first I thought I was hallucinating, but I got up anyway and walked to the kitchen to double check the appliances. All the burners on the range were off, and everything seemed to be in order. While walking back towards the living room, the scent hit me again.
At this point my wife smelled it too. For the next few minutes, we sniffed around like a couple of bloodhounds looking for a trail. We isolated the scent to a particular corner of the dining room.
But where was the smell coming from? Was it our neighbor? Was it something in the attic?
To get a fresh perspective, we walked outside the house to catch some fresh air and then returned inside. It was then we saw the haze.
I wiped my glasses with my shirt, thinking my lenses were dirty. But no - there it was - a light gray haze hanging over the dining room table. And the smell was only growing more pungent. Goddamn - I thought - the house is on fire.
911 was called. Within five minutes we had a giant screaming red truck outside. A couple of minutes later, another arrived. Within ten minutes, we had five (!) giant red trucks out in front of the house each with their lights wildly circling and horns blazing. Nosey neighbors dressed in comfortable evening wear came out to stand on the sidewalk and gawk.
Four very sooty, dirty firemen came up and onto the porch, with a battle ready glint in their eyes.
"Where is it!?" the first one exclaimed. To which I could only reply, "I don't know - but we have smoke, and it smells awful in there."
"Smells electrical," the second fireman noted.
On a hunch the fire was likely coming from under the house (smoke rises, right?), I suggested trying that area first. The four firemen - each carrying all kinds of heavy gear on their backs - made their way down the ancient stairwell to the crawl space. The steps on the stairwell were so wet, old, and rotten, that one fireman's foot went straight through a step on the way down.
Immediately they found the problem. Thanks to the immense amount of rain we've had in Atlanta the past month, the sub-pump in the basement (which pumps out excess water) had overheated, caught fire, and torched the plastic bucket around itself.
After all the craziness calmed down, the house stunk like a tire fire, and the smoke was still lingering in the air. All we could think about was what would have happened if the pump burned out in the middle of the work day - when neither one of us would have been home to smell the first whiff of smoke.
But then we remembered the sweetest part - we close on our new house on June 2 - and we can finally leave our blessed, rotten little rental behind for good.
Comments
Glad to hear it wasn't damaging at all, btw, congrats o nthe house! We're headed that direction soon!
Posted by: Bob Clagett at May 21, 2003 11:17 AM
For a minute I thought you were going to tell us this was your new house burning down...glad no one was hurt!
Posted by: Allan White at May 21, 2003 12:22 PM
Glad to hear everything was OK.
Don't expect to walk away from this kind of thing when moving into your "new" house. On the contrary, expect this to be a part of your life!
Posted by: William at May 21, 2003 3:18 PM
My own Burning Down the House episode, from last November:
If you happen to live in an area where leaf burning is allowed, you might rake the front yard, burn the pile, hose it down, and then perhaps you’d dump the ashes around the side of the house. You also might be surprised when five hours later, your daughter looks out the window and says, “Dad, there's a bush on fire outside.”
I'm still hearing about it... and there's no inanimate object I can implicate.
Posted by: Eccentric Gardener at May 21, 2003 3:28 PM
I'd like to regale you with stories of how this goes away when you own your own home, but unfortunately, it just ties you in even closer. Had you not been moving, at least your landlord, or his insurance, would have paid for it.
In your house, it's all you baby!
Don't get me wrong, I'll never rent again, but it definitely is a different playing field.
Posted by: Chris Thompson at May 21, 2003 3:55 PM
Wow. Close call. We had a sump pump oveheating problem when we moved into our house. No fire occured as the pump had a protective circuit to shut itself down. Strange thing was, one day it finally occured to me (it was in the farthest, darkest corner of our house, behind the furnace in a tiny basement utility closet) that the pump was cycling on and off, on and off. Turns out the pump had been encased in concrete and the concrete had the float locked in place as if water always needed pumping. Had to jackhammer the bugger out!
Posted by: Richard at May 21, 2003 5:33 PM
I love the smell of burning plastic. It takes me back to childhood...
In a place i was renting while in school, the fuse box located in my bedroom exploded. BOOM! I was out of bed faster than god on meth getting out of a confessional. I jumped on the posters i had put up around the box (which were now on fire) with my comforter. that was the 4th most scared i've ever been. strangely beautiful as well though...
Posted by: rob rhyne at May 22, 2003 12:20 AM
Close call. Glad to hear your all ok.
Posted by: Paul at May 22, 2003 8:01 AM
Sorry to hear about the fire, but good luck with the closing! I'm headed to the lawyer to close on my new house in about one hour! :o)
Posted by: Daniel at May 22, 2003 12:37 PM
