When Can We Get Rid of All the Trash?

These are some snapshots of the night it all happened! This is right outside our front door. You can see the rain just making a pool of our driveway.

The bottom of the car tire was hidden.

This is when the rain stopped.
Just 2 steps down...
Our landlord came the next day with the pump. After about 30 hours of pumping action, this was the result - you can't really tell, but this is the floor of the basement. Yes, he was pumping it through the tiny garden hose.
What a mess!!

Pictured below were some of the creative means we used for drying our items. Our Christmas tree (even though it was in the water overnight) miraculously was not really wet, so K hung the branches on the basketball netting, hosed it down, and let it dry! The huge box for it was completely destroyed...by the way, where in the world do you find another Christmas tree box big enough for all the branches?

Living in a different country has produced numerous unperceived challenges in many aspects of our lives, and since my husband is always thinking ahead he's holding onto the 30 garbage bags outside our front door until we receive the insurance money from the flood...just in case that's another unperceived challenge. Good idea! He doesn't want to get rid of the proof until we've been compensated for our loss. I don't blame him, but the front driveway is looking pretty 'trashy' right now! We have suitcases, our stand up vacuum, a file cabinet, many totes and of course our 30 trash bags. Now that I'm looking at the picture, it doesn't seem like there could be 30 trash bags there...but believe me, I've counted!
The mound contains cardboard under the tarp to dry. You see, if we dry it out we can recycle it. We've turned so green from living in Europe!