This was a now-closed fundraiser with good intentions. I asked for free manpower help too, which many people responded positively to as an alternative, but when the time came nobody showed up FWIW. Thanks to all who donated!
A little backstory: My home with my parents back in PA is an apartment, my grandma's home where I spent about 40% of the time out here in NJ has a big basement - long story short, it is the base for my collection and I now of course spend about 50-60% of my time here and live here half the time. Well, I was out in PA for a little while and just got back to NJ to actually drop off another game I found out in PA (frequently going back and forth allows me a much larger range for seeking out games as I can come and go as I please, so while where I picked up my game would be 4 hours each way from here in NJ, it would only be an hour and a half from PA where I can come home and rest and sleep until I want to make the rest of the trip back to the collection or for when I was going to anyways - usually weekends)...
Half of the basement's floor filled with water with the big rain on Sunday and by the time I got back here today (Wednesday) it was still very apparent but a lot of it had likely also evaporated. I had a few heads on the floor there and one whole pinball machine laying down flat on floor in the area that got flooded and while the heads are upstairs drying, the pinball machine didn't fair so well. Although it was probably my least favorite machine and least valuable machine but as involved and invested both physically and mentally in this lovely hobby as I am you can imagine how shocked and crushed I am to come back to see half of my adored machines' feet sitting in water with the leg levelers beginning to rust and leave marks on the floor let alone one machine's cabinet basically destroyed. I am so thankful the water did not reach the other half of the basement nor did it seem to rise all the way up to touch the bottom of the cabinets of the set-up machines. Thank god.
I spent the last of the money I had on a dehumidifier tonight to hopefully save the slow decay of my playfields, backglasses, and inner contacts from the intense humidity currently inside of my basement. More heavy rain is coming soon as we come out of the winter season and I am honestly not prepared. My late grandpa used to raise canaries in our basement in ceiling high cages called "flights" he built and for this reason he removed the sump pump and filled in the hole this house came with - it has been gone for 41 years and I should have known better and done it sooner as I started collecting but I didn't have the bulk amount of money for a pump and installation.
I am asking for help. I do not like being a charity chase but I do not have much else to do right now both in regards to money and manpower. If anybody nearby can make the time I would like to disassemble and move 9 of my machines upstairs to get them out of harms' way but more importantly getting them out of the way to install drylock on the walls (I already did the other half a few months ago) and also hopefully come up with enough for a sump pump and installation or try to figure out how to put the work in and do it myself.
If anybody is nearby and wants to help out please send me a PM. I had plans back in PA and was supposed to go back tomorrow morning but now I will wait until at least another heavy rain passes tomorrow to go home but hopefully I can get some machines pulled out of there. I have moved as many games as I can myself and have two machines shoved in the aisle between other machines on the dry side of the basement but there are still more to go.
I try to help out as much as I can on the forums and give back to other friends and collectors as much as I can and I would prefer to stay on that side of things rather than asking for help but I am all out of options for the near future.
If you would like to help contribute to the sump pump fund (my bank is nearly at 0, I didn't realize how expensive dehumidifiers were) my PayPal is [no longer accepting donations, thank you all SO MUCH!] although I am ashamed to even offer it as an option. I hope it is not asking too much. I will be calling around for quotes soon but if anybody else here has experience in that area please let me know. Again I am sorry to ask. I hope my case is somewhat worthy. Thank you so much.
Steven
I will post pictures soon. After vacuuming up as much water as I could and installing the dehumidifier I am hoping the future looks brighter than it does right now.
If you can't offer either kind of help I fully understand. Please keep me and my games in your thoughts... if there's a will there's a way.