The first year we lived there the house flooded twice and cost the landlord thousands of dollars in repairs, not to mention the days we were forced to live in one room of the 2100 square foot house because everything else was wet.
After the second flood the landlord installed a sump pump just outside the patio doors. This sounded like a workable solution except the reservoir would fill up with storm debris and clog the pump.
"Oh, that's an easy fix", said she. "Whenever the pump gets clogged, just go outside and unplug it for a few seconds and then plug it back in."
Does anyone besides me see a problem with this? The pump is clogged, the patio is flooded and I'm supposed to stand in ankle deep water and unplug an electrical cord. Then after waiting a few seconds plug it back in. Here's a fuzzy picture of what it was like. I think you get the idea.
I tried this a couple of times before informing the Lord of the Land that I was not going to stand in ankle deep water and unplug an electrical device.
Shortly after my refusal, she announced her brilliant plan to solve the flooding problem. She installed a few extra drains around the yard. 
The second year was a fairly dry year in Oklahoma but the drains still couldn't handle that small amount of water and water still came into the house.
The third year we flooded twice. The same in the fourth year.
Spring of 2007 was the wettest spring in Oklahoma history. Even with all these drains in the yard, we still flooded. I planted grass and it would wash away. I planted flowers and green plants and they would wash away too.
Fed up we decided to move. You can call me slow if you want. You probably would have been fed up long before I was.
After careful investigation I discovered that the all of the drains (except the sump pump) were channeled into the city's storm drains (illegal according to city ordinances). I took pictures to document the violations, but shortly after we moved out, I understand that the owner took steps to fix the problem professionally.
We had finally had our fill and moved. When picking out our new home, we made sure we were on high ground.
Yesterday we got over 3 inches of rain and I can't help but wonder just how much of that water seeped into the house.
