You can accomplish a lot by cleaning out the window wells, fixing the grade and redirecting the downspouts. When I wanted to raise the level of the soil around the house (for improved grading and to put in gardens), I put in a plain galvanized window well and capped it with a plastic window well cover. In spite of heavy rains lately, it's dry as a bone in there (the floor of the window well is about 3-4 inches below the outside window sill). See the link below for pics. Of course, if any of the property slopes toward the house, these things might not be enough. However, the silt coming into your basement would have me running away into the night. Must be quite the crack to allow silt to come in. Or a lot of water behind there, to even get the silt flowing! This doesn't seem like something that can be fixed from the inside. Here is a link that might be useful: back yard pics, new house

The house was built in 1976. No drains that I know of- and the landscapers didn't mention any last year when they came out last year (he would have, as the drainage tiles were an alternative suggestion of his as well). Soil goes from black dirt in the front yard to sandy in the back, but mostly black dirt around the front of the house. I haven't physically looked at the gutters in that specific corner, but all the gutters I can see are clear (I don't have a ladder tall enough). Part of the wet area is along the front of the house, which is not covered by gutters (I've attached a picture...wet corner is the one closest to use, along the driveway with the downspout) Thanks!

Thanks for all of the recommendations! lazygardens and edlincoln -that's a good point about grading and the french drain. I didn't mention, but we are also having landscapers out to grade, create a swale in the back around this little room and down the hill to the north, and some other grading on the other side of the house. Generally it's graded ok, in each of the estimates, the landscapers have mentioned that grading looks generally ok. My picture's kind of at the wrong angle, too. It seems odd that we get any water because there's a gulley to the north, though the house isn't quite at the peak of the hill. worthy - thanks for the link on the EPDM, I'd never heard of it before. Do you happen to know if the EPDM I find online as a pond liner would work? It's not a huge space, so I don't need such a large roll. All the smaller sizes seem to be labeled for ponds.

Mark, The pump could be used. I had to do an emergency something similar over a Christmas holiday. I grabbed one of those Rubbermaid containers with a lid on it we had laying around, dropped the pump in making sure the float wouldn't snag on anything, cut some holes in the lid to match the piping, added a check valve right at the outlet of the pump (stops sewer or septic gases. I do suggest venting it. Now, when I added up all the costs if I would have bought everything...It would have come to about $125-$150. I was in Home Depot this evening after I had read your post earlier. They have a great under sink pump that is completely sealed and made for the job for $198.00. If you are a Veteran or know one, HD gives a 10% discount for anything over $100. Just show them a copy of your DD214. If you are a regular shopper, they'll copy the DD214, shrink it down to credit card size for easier future use.