The other morning, Drew told me that the dog had peed just outside of the closet that contains the furnace. I was confused as the dog has proven to be 99% housebroken for awhile now. "How could she have done that? She was trapped in the bedroom with us and then she went outside." He suggested that perhaps since she was waiting outside the master bathroom when he got out of the shower that I wasn't watching her all that closely since she'd come back in.
I suggested that Mondale had done it for some inexplicable reason. But, you know, you hear about cats refusing to use the litter box all the time. It could happen to us.
The wetness didn't seem like pee, but we cleaned it up and got on with our lives.
Then Drew went into his game room while I was out of town for the weekend. He called and told me that the floor in there was wet. We speculated wildly. I declared that the only way to find the source of the water was to pull up the carpet, dry the floor and see where the water was coming from.
So, last night we aquired a razor and cut out the sopping wet carpet and glued-down pad underneath. I mopped up the water while Drew took the carpet to the trash. (It was clearly musty-smelling trash.) Then I looked and I thought I could see where the water was. But maybe I didn't wipe it all that well. I wiped it up again, left the room to hang up the towel, and came back. It seemed extra wet behind the door again. Drew came in and I asked him to look.
At this point, I aquired a flat head screwdriver. I removed the vent cover for the intake that's directly below the furnace closet. There's another vent right there where the water seemed to be coming from. A second staring in the hole with a flashlight revealed the problem. It's a simple leaking pipe. We threw a bucket under it, and it was quickly determined that the leaking pipe was related to the air conditioning. It's putting out about a gallon an hour.
So, today I had to stay home from work to empty the bucket. Because we can't turn off the air conditioner even if we're not at home since we have animals who are always here. The pipe is near the floor, so there's a limit on the size of bucket we can stick under it, and that limit is pretty low. I've made the necessary calls, and we'll have it all fixed soon.
