Kitchen Hardwoods Flooded

Midnight on a work night....

and was laying on the bed when I had an epiphany...

the washing machine must be to blame for the foul odor that had been mysteriously wafting throughout the house for the past few days. 

The w/d set was $450 on Craigslist and came with a warranty, so I figured if it was a bad pair that I'd just have them repair it or simply resell it for a small profit.

Now this thing stunk to high heaven when I first bought it. It was filled with mildew. I hadn't bothered to stick my head in it to see if it was pleasant on the nose. 

But it worked, kind of.

Not really. Apparently I bought the worst front-loaders in the history of front loaders.

<2,000 1-star reviews on the consumer reviews website.

Beware, the LG Tromm.

But I cleaned it until it didn't reek, and had been using it regularly, past the warranty expiration date, and then one day it just stopped working.

You see, I accidentally left wet laundry in it...

because it broke...

mid-cycle.

It stopped spinning, and

apparently it never drained.

So tonight I go to investigate only to find the foulest smell I've ever caught wind of.

{Well, aside from a thousand year old egg. That thing was rotten and sent me hurling into the garden with my best friend.}

Something had to be done.

So I washed the clothes in the sink (total failure, they were ruined)

and then researched online about how to drain the thing, since the house wasn't going to smell like roses with that nasty, putrid water in it.

The Sears appliance channel said to just tip it over a bucket and unscrew the cap to the drain clean-out on the front bottom left corner of the machine.

Easier said than done.

The thing weighs about 300 pounds.

But I was able to somehow manage to get it tilted up on the front corner, bucket underneath, and remove the drain cap so the water started flowing out.

Here were the floors before things got messy:

Notice the stripes of adhesive?

What the Sears repair video didn't state was that there were two small holes underneath the drain clean-out tube. It wasn't until the kitchen was partially flooded that I noticed most of the water wasn't making it into the bucket. Now the house really reeked.

But that wasn't even the worst of it.

The kitchen floor still had that water-soluble, felt-covered adhesive on it.

Suddenly, my kitchen was a slimy, sludgy, gooey, stinky mess.

and, did I mention it was midnight on a work night?

So there I was again, with a sponge and a bucket.
and a respirator
because it stunk to high heaven.

even the cats wouldn't come near.

and here's the kicker:
the gooey adhesive won't just come off with one wipe of the sponge.
nooooo....
it's like the wiping just never ends.

but it had to get cleaned up, immediately.
My cat has chronic renal failure
and old adhesives are known to be damaging to the kidneys.
We can't have him stepping in it then licking his paws.

The bedroom is the only room with a door to it in the house right now.
But locking him up in the bedroom with the litter box was not an option.
He'd pee on the bed out of spite.

So two and a half hours later....

there was a silver lining.
All I'll need to do to get the remaining adhesive off the kitchen hardwoods that weren't flooded
is to flood the rest of the kitchen.