Holy Sh*t!!!

[Sir_Galahad]

Literally.

Around 2PM I went down to my basement to get something and noticed that my sewer drain had started to back up. So I called a sewer company and they sent a guy out pretty quickly to find the source of the problem. Meanwhile, the flow of the backup starts to increase and my basement is flooding faster than we can mop it up. So we started moving the contents around in hopes that nothing would get seriously damaged. But still, the backup continued. The sewer guy ran a snake but that did not fix the problem so he said there must be a blockage in the city sewer outside the house. So, he had to make several emergency calls before the city sent a crew over to find the problem. About half hour later they arrived and snaked the sewer line outside the house. It seems somebody had been flushing baby wipes down the toilet causing a blockage in the line (some of these lovely things actually backed up into our basement). But, they did clear the lines and out basement drained a bit. But, now we are faced with the cleanup. Ugh!!! So, we called a professional cleanup service and they are on their way. Boy, does it ever stink down there! Hopefully, they can do something about that besides just clean the place up.

The one fortunate thing I can take away from this is that we did not have the basement finished. But, it certainly makes me think twice about doing that. After all, I could not imagine what the cleanup costs would have been had the basement been finished. The City is going to hear from me tomorrow.

[Jeemie]

Literally.

Around 2PM I went down to my basement to get something and noticed that my sewer drain had started to back up. So I called a sewer company and they sent a guy out pretty quickly to find the source of the problem. Meanwhile, the flow of the backup starts to increase and my basement is flooding faster than we can mop it up. So we started moving the contents around in hopes that nothing would get seriously damaged. But still, the backup continued. The sewer guy ran a snake but that did not fix the problem so he said there must be a blockage in the city sewer outside the house. So, he had to make several emergency calls before the city sent a crew over to find the problem. About half hour later they arrived and snaked the sewer line outside the house. It seems somebody had been flushing baby wipes down the toilet causing a blockage in the line (some of these lovely things actually backed up into our basement). But, they did clear the lines and out basement drained a bit. But, now we are faced with the cleanup. Ugh!!! So, we called a professional cleanup service and they are on their way. Boy, does it ever stink down there! Hopefully, they can do something about that besides just clean the place up.

The one fortunate thing I can take away from this is that we did not have the basement finished. But, it certainly makes me think twice about doing that. After all, I could not imagine what the cleanup costs would have been had the basement been finished. The City is going to hear from me tomorrow.

Glad to hear it's just a little smell.

We had some friends who DID finish their basement, and in the middle of the night, their water softener got clogged.

When they went downstairs in the morning, they found 4 inches of water all throughout their basement.

They lost all the furniture, carpeting, their Wii, Play Station, washer, sewing machine, and a whole bunch of other games and stuff.

[BackInTex]

Been there, done that.

Rubber gloves and about 1 1/2 hours of hand washing afterwords.

[sunflower]

I am always amazed at what people will flush down their toilets. As president of my condo association, I recently had to send a letter to one building, there is a sewer pump that services only that building. It became a problem when the pump failed twice - once from having pantyhose flushed down a toilet and the other time from having a t-shirt flushed down a toilet. A t-shirt.

After the sewer company guy came to clean out the system and repair the pump, I was amazed at the things he had to clean out. So I can sympathize with you, and it sucks that you had this problem due to someone else's actions. My fingers are crossed for a thorough and speedy cleanup at your house!!!

[Bob78164]

I was expecting a post about a Pope and the woods.

I'm glad the damage wasn't more extensive. --Bob

[kayrharris]

You can't flush those things???

I work in insurance, so I do know that. I just checked my package of Huggies baby wipes
and the only indication not to flush them is a tiny little image of a toilet with a line drawn through it.
I really had to look for it.

[geoffil]

Yuk. Good thing you weren't on vacation and caught it early.

A few months ago my daughter went in our basement and came upstairs commenting on the water. Our sump pump broke on a but we were able to get a new one at Lowes. My husband had to bring the old pump to Lowes to get some part taken off so he could install the new one. The guy at Lowes said our pump was a really old one. Well we bought our house new and it should have been only 3 years old , not a used 10 year old one. The builder put in a used sump pump and never told us.

[peacock2121]

Wow! I am impressed by how quickly the city responded.

Bravo to them!

I figured everyone knew you shouldn't flush butt wipes.

[ulysses5019]

i thought this was going to be a BPOTD........sewer going bad in a church basement.

[minimetoo26]

We had renters flush a Capri Sun packet down a toilet (fortunately, one on the ground floor...)

The security deposit got charged $85 for the removal. Bet they wish they had walked a couple of steps to the garbage can instead. I suppose they had already emptied the wastebasket and didn't want to make another trip. I've given up figuring out how people have managed to break things anymore, though.