Pipes

Two days after closing, and we took advantage of the great weather to invite some people over to see what a disaster we had signed up for.

The whole family went over early and brought some snacks and drinks. The girls ran around in the yard, and eventually someone needed to use the facilities. After escorting or youngest into the "scary" house, she did what she needed to do and returned to play with her friends, reporting briefly that the water wasn't working.

REALLY shut off

Being somewhat handy, I assumed (correctly) that the prior owners had shut the water off since they had moved out months before. I made a mental note to go into the cellar and restore water so our guests could use the scary bathrooms if needed.

When I got around to doing that, I had an awful lot of trouble actually locating the water shutoff valve. I found some candidate plumbing, but it didn't appear to be connected to anything. Meanwhile, we had other guests and kids in the house, and in the scary bathrooms, by that time. Knowing our builder was joining us for a glass of wine, I figured he could give me a hand.

Partial Pipes

Upon returning to the basement, he and I looked around, glasses in hand, searching for the shut off. Looking at what was 90% likely to be it, we both noted it was not connected to anything. After a few moments of deep thought, we realized that someone had stolen the copper water pipes.

Throughout the cellar, we found copper pipes with clean cut marks. Someone had apparently gotten into the house and harvested the copper, now quite a valuable commodity, and liberated it from the premises.

Which, of course, made cleaning the scary bathrooms an awful lot of fun.