moron engineering strikes again

Last night, my children came rushing into my office to inform me that there was water all over the floor in my daughter's bedroom. Intrigued by their enthusiasm (and half expecting her aquarium to have sprung a leak), I soon found myself walking on spongy carpet near her closet. Unfortunately, the morons who built our home (who I have mentioned a number of times in the past for their creative electrical feats) apparently ran out of room when they were designing the layout of our home and realized at the last minute that - oops - we need to put the hot water heater somewhere.

So they stuck it in my daughter's closet, since her bedroom is in the finished basement. Now, I won't go into detail why I feel like sticking a hot water heater into a bedroom closet is a stupid idea. I don't really think that I need to elaborate. Let's just say that if I was going to install a hot water heater into the closet of a carpeted bedroom, I might do a little more than just stick a piece of plywood beneath it. For example, it might make sense to install a drip pan or even a drain in case the water heater should ever leak. But that would make too much sense.

So there I was, sucking water out of the carpet with a wet/dry vacuum for about two hours, cussing quietly at the anonymous builders of my home. I can only hope that we get all of the moisture out so that we don't get mold and mildew growing under the pad.