Shocking Morning ...with Lasting Effects

A few weeks ago I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth while Snow White was in the dinning room eating breakfast. It was a normal weekday winter morning. Snow on the ground and ice everywhere do the latest storm blowing through.

While brushing my teeth I heard a loud thrashing noise! It sounded like someone with a metal whip on the roof. As I pondered what could really be making this horrible noise, something huge and black raced past the bathroom window! I ran to the window to find out what that strange something was. Then I saw it wriggling in my back yard. It was HUGE! and it was Moving! It was so big it laid from the far back corner of our yard to the front corner of the yard diagonally (we have a very large yard). It was a power line which until a few moments ago was attached to my next door neighbors house.

Thank God it didn’t breakthrough the bathroom window!

Before I could call the power company there was a knock at the front door. It was the next door neighbor’s daughter. “We thought the whole neighborhood lost power but it is just us. The power line is in your back yard and we wanted to make sure you don’t let Pup out back until the power company fixes it.” That was extremely thought full of them. I told her they could use our bathroom and anything else they needed while waiting for the repairs. I like these neighbors.

I was surprised to see that she walked over to our house with only flip flops on. It was the middle of winter and there was ice, snow and water all over the ground. She could have been electrocuted!

I almost called in to work saying I couldn’t leave the house for fear of walking in electrified water to get to our van. Then I thought of the amount of work waiting for me at the office, and the fact that Snow White’s school would call to say it would be an unexcused absence. Well, the neighbor’s daughter survived walking across our driveway so maybe it was safe.

Even so, I reminded Snow White how to dial 911, not to come outside - no matter what and to stay in the kitchen doorway while I tested the driveway. It was fine. We made it to the van without incident.

When we returned to our house that evening the power company was in the final phase of reconnecting the wire to the neighbors house. I was happy their power would be restored quickly.

What brought down the power line? Our neighbor on the other side has a very large pine tree at the back corner of their yard. Over the past year this tree has dropped many branches in our back yard. It is a nuisance. Pup loves to furrow through all the pine needles. When he comes back into the house he is covered in them and tracks them all over the kitchen and the living room. The pine needles and small branches that do not fall off on my floor are tangled in his fur for me to remove with accompaniment of yelping and growling.

The tree branches were covered with ice and apparently five of the large branches broke then fell on to the power line.

Now that the power line is out of my yard and reattached to my other neighbor’s house, something odd has been happening at our house. The power is acting funky. We had a similar problem when the same neighbors (who lost power) wired their newly built workshop/shed in their back yard.

The light in Snow White’s bathroom will not turn on. But if you flip the switch in the bathroom the under cabinet lights in the kitchen will turn on! Well, only two of them.

The light at the bottom of the basement stairs wont turn on all the way. Weird thing is that if you have Snow White’s bathroom light switch on and the basement stair switch on…you now have four under cabinet lights that will turn on in the kitchen.

The dinning room light switch sometimes turns on a lamp but the glow is so low that one candle would out shine it. It too has an effect on the under cabinet lights in the kitchen. It doesn’t turn more on it just makes them a little brighter. So in order to have some-what useable light in the kitchen you must turn on Snow White’s bathroom light, the dinning room light and basement stair light.

The hall light, kitchen overhead light, main light above the kitchen sink and the sunroom lights will not turn on for anything, no matter what switch combination you have going on. Power in the rest of the house is working properly.

The power company assures me there is nothing wrong with the power going into my house so it must be internal. The electrician says there is nothing wrong with the power inside my house, it is the lack of power coming into the house. Neither knows what to do to fix this problem.

As I mentioned this has happened before. It eventually worked it’s self out after a matter of two weeks. It has been more than two weeks and I don’t know what else to do. The electrician cannot fix anything inside if he cannot find anything that is not working properly. I cannot make the power company do anything. Sure I could stop paying my bill but that would only result in cutting my power off completely and placing some derogatory marks on my credit.

In the mean time we have been having dinner in the family room. We enjoy the kitchen and dinning room during daylight hours. A flash light has been placed in Snow White’s bathroom and she takes her nightly baths in my bathroom. She thinks it’s a big deal to have a bubble bath in Mommy’s “fancy” bathroom. Well, we are making the most of it until something gives. Maybe I need another electrician to come out.