Two weekends ago I discovered a leak in my grandmother's basement. What tipped me off was the smell of standing water, particularly since it was warm. An inch of water and some searching and we found the source, and it was bad. Not merely any pipe, but the primary sewer line that takes filthy water out of the house.
We thought we had it fixed. A close neighbor who does contract work found that the pipe was clogged, and we got a snake and thought we unclogged it all. We did not. Last weekend it was still leaking. Worse, because there isn't a sump pump, and very few windows, we couldn't get the floor dry. Since it was the main sewer line, every action that used water in the house meant more leaking.
There is at least three inches of water now in the front of her basement. Even worse, because it's dirty water from the entire house, meant for the sewage treatment plant, it stinks, and it's actively growing huge floats of mold.
This is obviously a health hazard and a difficult problem. You can't just call anyone in to clean up something of this level. However, my grandmother is an elderly woman on a fixed income. What's more, my sibling and their kids live with her, and my sibling is disabled.
All of their spare frozen and non-perishable food is in that basement. All of their toilet paper and paper towels are down there. They can't avoid going down there, which means exposure to that mold and any other microorganisms growing in the filth. Yet, because of the deliberate poverty engineered for elderly and disabled people, they have no way to get it cleaned up, nor the ability to avoid the cesspool. They can't even save up for it, because they're already living with their backs to the wall financially for their basic needs.
We need to get the water drained, the contaminated junk out, the carpets cleaned afterwards, and, depending on what the homeowner's insurance will cover, cleanup for the water damage and mold. They will likely also need some things replaced, like the toilet paper. All in all, the current goal is an estimate for the junk removal, recouping what we paid the plumber, and getting the water drained while we scramble to figure out how to get this major health hazard cleaned up as quickly as possible before someone gets sick. It may change in the future as we receive estimates and word from the insurance.
The goal has been updated to reflect the estimates received for a cleaning company to come out and fix this mess, as well as covering the costs of the initial plumber to fix the pipe and the cost of having the cleaning company come out and assess the damage and give us their estimate.
