I walked downstairs to get something, or do something… I can’t really recall those moments right now. Whatever it was that I had in mind got completely obliterated by the overwhelming odor I smelled first near our bathroom and then downstairs, in the room the kids were in.

My natural assumption was children, being children, were filling the room with their own stench. I checked. They were not. And this was a very oddly bad smell. I was about to head back upstairs when passing through that room again was so unbearable I had to find the source of that smell.

I finally realized that it smelled like sewage, and I thought perhaps that ancient toilet in our basement (we just stack things on top of it) might be belching up some fumes or something.

It was belching up lots more than that.

When I went downstairs I heard a little “waterfall” and went to investigate. Water was pouring out of the toilet. I cleared it off, tried to look for any valves I could… until I finally just shut off the water to our entire house. I lifted the lid to find fresh “poo poo” and toilet paper floating in there. (I could rule out that anyone used our toilet by the fact that I had to move 50 pounds of books and other things off of the lid to get there!)

I had no idea what to do. The basement is flooded with other people’s flushes, and it’s still coming.

I called the village water folks. They tried calling… but got no answer. I called a plumber, and he told me to call the village. At least he told me more. Apparently, we’re not the only ones. There’s a “main” backed up on our street… and sure enough, my neighbors have confirmed this. So we’re all sharing in the joy of this smelly day.

Unfortunately, lots of our basement (and so, lots of our stuff down there) is sitting in 1-2″ of poo water. Looks like I have a new agenda for today. 🙁

So… they assure me the truck is coming soon. We’ll see.

Just how do you clean up such a mess?