The Toilet From Hell

In the overnight hours of Saturday, August 26th, a water line burst in the women’s restroom. The hose connected the incoming water to the toilet tank failed and flailed violently, spraying water throughout the house for several hours. The damage was extensive, and water sprayed as far as the collections basket sitting on the side table by the Seven-One-One whiteboard.

The Olathe Group of AA and the Al-Anon group that uses the building suddenly had no place to go. The floors had several inches of standing water, the walls had soaked up water waist high, and we had to shut down immediately.

Seven-One-One worked with DocE properties to take immediate action. Within 24 hours, a new temporary location at the Olathe Club of the Deaf had been rented to hold evening and weekend meetings. The Olathe Library was used for noon meetings for two weeks. A disaster recovery crew was brought in to begin drying out the floors and walls. Asbestos and mold testing had to be done with samples being sent to Topeka.

When the drying was done after two weeks, and the samples for asbestos and mold proved negative, we were able to temporarily reoccupy the building for about two more weeks before the necessarily remodeling.

The house had to be emptied. A crew of volunteers spent a day moving all the furniture, wall hangings, signs, bulletin boards, and displays to the shed, attic, and anywhere else we could find.

We spent another two weeks meeting at the Olathe Club of the Deaf and the Olathe Library while professional crews removed the flooring and redid everything in the main room, restrooms, back room, closets, walls, and ceilings.

Finally, on Saturday, September 30th, more than a month after the “Toilet from Hell” exploded, we returned to our beloved home.