Flood! or One of the Things that Might go Wrong in a Housesit!

Water running around the side of the house headed for the front.

Our bedroom is upstairs here in Sacramento.  There is a lovely window seat which overlooks the backyard.  Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is look out the window at the garden.  This morning there was water everywhere.  At first I thought, "Oh, it's raining."  Upon closer inspection I realized there had to be a broken water pipe somewhere, as the water was running from the back yard around the house and into the front.  Rapidly!

Look! We have a water garden!

We both jumped up, grabbed our clothes and went to look.  There was a lovely spring coming from the ground in the back of the garden.  We both ran around looking for the water meter to turn the water off to the house, only to remember that Sacramento doesn't have water meters in the older parts of town.  I opened the side gates and swept the debris clear so the water would not pool and run into the basement.

A bubbling spring where the pipe once was.

 A call to the homeowners' daughter, who gave the number of a plumber.  I called him, even though it was barely 6 am.  He called back about 6:30.  I'm impressed!  With the help of the neighbor, who thought this was the main shut off leaking, the valve was closed.  We have cleaned up what we can, as far as the washed out leaves and mulch.  The hole left by the water is large and will take a bit of dirt to fill once the plumber is finished.

 

A hole left by the leaking pipe.  That's a whole lot of dirt gone!

On the bright side:
All the water we had to deal with was clean.
The neighbor was most understanding about the water pooling in the front of his garage. 
Now the garden won't need watering for a bit, it's been deep watered today!

We have also added to our "Need to know before the homeowner leaves" list: 
Where is the main water shut off valve.
 Name and number of a plumber.