Monday, January 18, 2010

Water, water everywhere

Back in November, I found out that my thesis was accepted and that I will indeed be getting my M.A. (more on that soon). To celebrate, and because he had been jonesing for it, John took us to a little restaurant up the hill from us for dinner. On the way home in the car, I noticed that the floorboard was wet.

"What do you mean 'wet'?" demanded John.

I splashed my feet in the puddle under my seat. "Wet!"

At that point, it was late and dark and cold, so we scooped out as much water as we could manage with a dust pan we keep in the trunk and called it a night. The next day, and on many subsequent days, I went out with a stack of towels and sopped water out of the front and back floorboards on the passenger side. Judging by the many sprouts I pulled out of the carpets and floor mats and the moldy items I scraped out of the door pocket, I'd say we'd had the problem for a while.

I can't tell that there is a leak around the seals on the doors, and a little googling brings me to the conclusion that the water could be getting in through a couple of different places in the ventilation system (blocked pollen filter or blocked a/c drain), which are located behind the dashboard on the passenger side.

When we first discovered the problem, it was a busy time of year, approaching the holidays and all, so we put off taking the car into the shop. I tried to buy a tarp to put over it, but let's just say that it wasn't a successfull maneuver. After the holidays, it finally turned cold and snowed. Frozen floorboards are preferable to soggy. But yesterday it rained all.day.long. Buckets and buckets of rain. At some point, I am going to have to go outside and bail out the car. If we don't get it into the shop soon, I am going to buy us all galoshes to wear in the car.