A story from Septic Hell

Well, from the comments, at least I am not alone in my septic misery. And since I'm on the topic...I should have blogged this story before - my sister's adventure in sewage.

She had all the symptoms of a septic problem. Sewage was backing up into her downstairs powder room, overflowing the toilet after a shower in the bath above. Her kitchen sink was also very slow. Sounds typical so far...

She had a "rooter" company come out, once...twice...three times. Snaked from the inside twice, then snaked with a camera (only one technician had the camera). Each time it improved. "All fixed," then it wasn't. The sewer-cam came back with mud on it. This meant that there was a hole in the septic line. Call in the excavators!

Still sounds typical, right? So the excavator digs to the pipe, which was only 3 feet down, not 6, as expected. They called her out to look. The pipe was busted all right, collapsed. Laying right through the middle of the pipe was the brand new Verizon FiOS cable. (AVerizon subcontractor had trenched the cable on her street about two months before her backups began.) Work on the excavation stopped, and Verizon was called, and they sent out a guy. Photos were taken, then (and only then) was the pipe fixed. This is what they saw:

She had to pay for the repair up front, and it cost over $5000. To make a long story short, it took her six months to get repaid by Verizon. They tried to got the sub to pay, but he had a million excuses, including "I don't have the money." Apparently he didn't have insurance either! Anyway, Verizon eventually determined that they were responsible, but it still took months to get the check in the mail.

The punch line is that she then signed up for Verizon FiOS service! (Which rocks, as they say.)