My Pay Toilet Is A Little Backed Up!

This past Friday I met with a client to list his home, an unoccupied short sale in the San Tan Valley, we arrived to find my client using towels to absorb what appeared to be a flood in the downstairs bathroom.

I had spoken with him earlier in the day and he hadn't mentioned any plumbing issues so I was surprised and concerned as the entire house, including the bathrooms, have beautiful hardwood floors.

What happened? I ask. It's the sewer company, he said.

The sewer company?.

Yep, they blocked the pipe.

I'm sure my mouth was open. What do you mean?

I was cleaning the toilets upstairs and down and after flushing them I noticed the downstairs bath was flooded.

Why would they do that, how can they do that?

We have XYZ, (not their real company name), a private sewer company and my wife forgot to pay the bill, when I realized that she had missed the payment I made it immediately.

I called and talked to the receivables person at XYZ to make sure they weren't going to block the sewer pipe, in fact I called twice and talked with two different people. They both assured me that I was not scheduled to have my service interrupted.

I'm sure my mouth was still open. They physically block the pipe?

Yep, it happened to a friend of ours who lives a couple of blocks from here. He hadn't missed a payment but his neighbor had, XYZ got the address wrong and blocked my friends sewer, it backed up and caused quite a bit of damage.

As soon as he had finished moping up as much water as possible and positioning a fan in the doorway to dry the floor he called the sewer company to report what had happened. To XYZ's credit, within an hour a company representative was at the home to check the damage and start the paperwork to begin the repair process.

My question to XYZ was why not just turn the water off if a bill is delinquent? The answer, water and sewer services are provided by two different private companies.

The company reps inspection took less than 30 minutes. His conclusion, the hard wood floor in the bathroom would have to be replaced, and three of the bathroom walls would need new sheet rock, texture and paint. They expect to have it finished in about 10 days.

As a REALTOR®, I've encountered a lot of unique twists and turns in the listing process, but this is a first!