Possibly one of the last holdouts, we finally made the decision to replace our circa 1970 water bed with a Tempur-Pedic ® mattress and bed.
While bed delivery people routinely dispose of old mattresses, they want nothing to do with dis-assembly of water beds. So this task was on us. Let me rephrase: with Kristin out of town, the task was on me. (Thanks, Shawn Emery, for offering to help.)
They were to deliver the new bed Tuesday morning, so I had all Monday to drain, disassemble, and dispose of the old bed in preparation. After fixing Ricky some breakfast, I set up the pump and started the first step: draining the big bladder of water.
Throughout the day, I would periodically check that it was working. It was, albeit more slowly than I would have preferred. I took a couple opportunities to adjust the hose's position, but had little effect on the speed.
About 9:00p, I had Ricky down for the night, and returned my focus to the bed. It still had roughly 350 pounds of water left in the bladder. At this point, I identified two paths:
- Go to bed immediately, letting it continue to drain. I could set my alarm for 2:00a and hope it was light enough to disassemble at that point.
- Power through the effort now, attempting to dispose of the full bed, then hope for an uninterrupted night of sleep.
I opted for the later. I disconnected the hoses and dragged the water-filled bladder down off the bed. It hit the carpet with muted splash followed by some gurgling.
My plan at this point was to drag this bag towards my bathroom and, with all my might, lift it into the tub where it could be further drained. I made it through the bathroom door and towards the tub. Already a panting, sweaty, mess, I realized there was no way I was going to maneuver it into the tub. Every part of the bladder I lifted sent the water fleeting to other areas of the bladder. Unless I could squat-lift a bag of water twice my size, I'd have to come up with another solution.
After a few minutes of thought (and daydreams of a good night's rest), I came up with a revised plan: drag the bladder through the bathroom, bedroom, living room, out onto the back balcony. There, I would gut it like a pig and let the water rain sixty feet down into the alley below.
It worked pretty much as well as you would expect:
- My shoes got a little wet.
- The dead plants below got a solid watering.
- There is now a sizable ice patch in the alley.
- As far as I've heard, no downstairs neighbors were unfortunate enough to have been enjoying their balconies at the time.
After most of the water had drained, the bladder was light enough to lift into a cart and take down to the dumpster. The dis-assembly and disposal of the bed frame went fairly smoothly.
After taking this long to document the story, I wish I had profound advice to bestow. If I learned anything, it’s that, should you find yourself in a similar situation, negotiate strongly to have the old bed removed. If all else fails, bribe the delivery men to do the same.
