Drunkenly Staggering on Kingsley Drive

A few weeks before we got married last summer, 3 feet of other people's poop and toilet run off came up through our basement drain. We were storing the Moore's (then serving in Ukraine) and Kandice's (getting read to serve in Central Asia) personal belongings. Many of our personal belongings were in the basement as well.

We lost everything...their things, all my pictures from birth through age 21, Micah's entire book library, many of my sentimental items that were in storage and in waiting to pass down to children...

It was a good lesson in where I placed my treasure. We survived (with Micah waking at 5 to come over super early in the morning and save what he could).

Yesterday we had a nasty hail storm. The streets in this neighborhood were flooded, ice was abundant, and it was a bit scary. I figured the basement might have some back-up but wasn't sure and didn't look.

But Micah looked, said it was gross, and I took him at his word.

I was out of clean clothes this morning and had done a load yesterday before the backup, so I thought I would go down to see if they were OK. The first thing I noticed in the basement was all the sludge on the ground. The second thing I noticed was the smell. I grabbed a clean pair of undies and a shirt, then came back upstairs and called a plumber.

What the plumber told me was the sewers and water lines run into each other (ew, gross) when it rains really hard and it would cost us $1500 to fix the basement. While it sucks that it is so expensive to fix this problem, what sucks even more is that we live in a neighborhood with people who have no means to fix the problem. Especially considering this is a problem of the CITY WATER AND SEWAGE DEPARTMENT.

So I then called the Department of Public Works.

The woman I spoke to there was incredibly helpful, sent my claim, and told me someone would be out shortly to look at our basement.

I felt powerful, I had called the man and gotten results! I felt like I was fighting for my neighbors and hopefully giving them something in the long run-that our days of having our basements filled with sewage were soon to be a distant memory.

A few hours later the DPW called, didn't come to the house, but called to tell me that our sewage problem was a common problem in this neighborhood and our best bet would be to put in a $1500 valve.

When I told him that I didn't find this acceptable and many people in our situation can't afford to put in a valve-especially given it is the city's malfunctioning water and sewage systems-he just tried to explain what happened again. So I asked him for who I could talk to about getting this fixed and he gave me some phone number for the Indianapolis City Engineering offices.

I feel like I am staggering through how to fight for my neighbors. Especially when I feel like there is injustice happening because I live in a largely impoverished neighborhood.

We have other people's poop coming into our basements in my neighborhood and all I can get is, "That's what happens when it rains really hard."

So, let's begin drunkenly staggering through this endeavor of loving our neighbors.

peace.