So Thursday morning I woke up with a headache. I'm not prone to headaches, but I had felt a sore throat coming on the day before and assumed that I was coming down with something. Considering I had had a particularly poor night of sleep, with more than one child waking me up, I was not surprised to feel so poorly.
I didn't get a chance to mention it to Rob before he mentioned he had a headache. I thought that was a weird coincidence and figured we were coming down with the same bug. Then Caleb woke up not feeling well, also claiming a headache.
I figured the best thing for all of us would be to go back upstairs and spend the day in bed. At the very last second (literally), Caleb decided he really, really wanted to go to school. I'm so glad that he did. It wasn't until re-entering my house that I realized we had a problem.
I made my neighbor come to the door and sniff - she confirmed my suspicions. We had a gas leak of some sort in our house.
The source of the headaches? Carbon monoxide poisoning. Awesome, right? (By the way, we did have a carbon monoxide detector in the house...it just didn't go off.)
Anyway, I called the gas company who sent someone out to check. He came in with his gas reader machine thingamajig and said, "Yup. You have a problem." The CO levels were reading 60 in our kitchen and 200 down in the basement by the furnace. (Anything over 50 will make a healthy adult sick from what I read.) He figured the problem was a cracked furnace and suggested that it be replaced since it was more than 20 years old. The nice part about renting is that we don't have to worry about fixing things like this when they break.
Our landlord got a furnace guy to come out to check out the situation that afternoon. The furnace guy decided it needed to be replaced and said it might not be able to be replaced until Monday. (Remember it's January in New England...Brrr!) We took the landlord up on his offer to pay for a hotel room for us.
We spent the night at a pretty nice little extended stay place not far from where Rob works and the kids were thrilled to get to go on "cation", as Chloe puts it.
The good news is that the furnace guy was able to get and install a new furnace Friday. I spent the day at our neighbors' house but was excited to come home to a warm house.
So, there you have it. The short version of the story since I think I'm getting carpal tunnel.
Be sure to check your carbon monoxide detectors. We'll be getting new ones ASAP!
7 comments:
That is CRAZY! Glad you guys are all okay though.
I'd rather see pictures and hear the good things!! I am so thankful that all turned out well.
I love you.
No way!! That is crazy! So happy you guys are okay and well!! =0)
Thank goodness Caleb wanted to go to school. I have one too and am going to go check the batteries
That is scary! I'm glad Caleb decided to go to school instead of you all going back to bed. I don't even know if we have carbon monoxide detectors in this house, I need to find out ASAP.
I'm so glad you are all okay and that you got a nice 'cation out of it.
Wow. So scary. Glad it's all okay now.
Post a Comment