Our Home is Unique: The Cistern

Most people spend years trying to differentiate their house from everyone else's on the street, the block, the city, etc. Our house is different all on it's own. I thought I would post some examples of what makes our house unique without having to change a thing.


We've had quite a bit of rain the last few weeks here in St. Louis. One evening last week I was sitting at the dining room table, keeping an eye on dinner when Gidget and I started hearing a strange noise. A gurgling, almost a moan... It was really weird. We decided to investigate and once we left the dining room you couldn't hear it anymore. Mister was in his shower (which is in the basement) and I could hear the water running, but that still didn't account for the odd "rushing" sound. Then I realized it was coming from our "vestibule" entrance. We technically have two front doors.

The one to the left, on the porch, is the one we use and the one people knock at when they come over. The one on the right leads into a little "room".

Looks pretty scary, doesn't it? This was meant to be the "before" shot for the paint job. 

 

Terrible pic looking from inside the house from when we closed. I immediately took down the curtain.

Detail shot of the tile work in there. No idea why they chose red, it goes with nothing in the house.

Door into the house and dining room; needs to be sanded apparently.

In this little room there is a raised area to the left when standing in the room looking into the house. If you pull back the cover, there is a cistern.

There is a second one under the front porch.

Mister pulled back the cover and I shot a little video of the water under our house. Care to see?



A little creepy, right? My voice sounds really funny, too. So why haven't I been hearing this for the last year (the cistern gurgle, not my goofy voice)? Misters theory is the painters used this cistern spigot for the power washing they did to prepare. Plus, I used it about three weeks ago to water all the plants around the house and the lawn (we don't usually water the lawn). We had never heard it before because it had never been that low.  I think his theory has been proven, because Saturday night we had a major thunderstorm and it dumped rain for at 6 hours. The rain and the winds were so strong they washed out part of our driveway and knocked over two of the windows the painters had propped up under the carport. Luckily nothing broke. But we didn't hear any water rushing into the cistern.


What makes your house unique?