Sewer Traps and Chi

I… hmm. I don’t know, I really don’t. I think I’ve said all the bad things about property Chi that need to be said. So, instead of bitching about that goddamned place as usual, lemme try and learn whatever I can before I blow that place up with the Africans inside it.

I’ll go over the steps I learned to take in replacing a sewer trap, based on what happened:

Brrrrng! Tenant calls and says the basement is backing up

Call the city to do a sewer flush. If the city says the sewage vent outside is broken, call a plumber, but only the ones that can give you quotes on the job. I called a regular plumber who referred me to the people who can handle a bigger job like that, and then had the nerve to charge for the service call.

Quotes for the Job

It’s very important to get more than one quote. Make sure, on the quote, it has the reason the company believes the pipe broke and needs replacing. Make sure they put a reason that is covered by insurance. Take the highest quote and send that to the insurance company. Then, once the insurance agrees to pay the money, give the job to the company that gave the lowest quote. This assures that I pay the least amount of money out of pocket for the job. 

The "finished" work

Sump Pump

While all this is going on, make sure there is a sump pump pushing water out of the basement. If water gets to a certain level, things can be irreparably damaged. Both hot water tanks no longer work so I had to buy two hot water tanks from Lowes: $650 for the pair and $400 for my HVAC guy Gonzales to install them. Another grand bites the dust. If I had a $80 sump pump running during this ordeal, the water levels would be under control and I would have saved over $900. Not to mention that I stupidly asked the plumbing people to drain the basement before the pipe got fixed. They drained it on a Saturday and the water levels were back by Sunday morning. They pumped 1600 gallons out and charged me $547. Never pay to get water out of the basement when the water problem hasn’t been fixed yet. So an $80 sump pump could have saved me a grand total of over $1600 if I had known what the hell I was doing. Ugh! Stupid stupid stupid.

Clean Up

The best thing is to see if the same company that did the sewage pipe replacement will also remove the debris. The remnants of roots and hardened sewage are very difficult to get rid of, and the smell of sewage continued to stink up the area. If they can’t do it, then I’ll have to get a garbage disposal company to do it. I doubt they will be cheap. I’ll find out today just how “not cheap” they will be. I... wait, I just got a quote from my handyman Alfonso's friend who does this type of stuff. $600 to haul everything away and put new dirt in there. Ugh...

See all that dirt around the new sewage pipe? That's actually hardened sewage mixed with dirt. They're like smelly boulders and an expensive pain in the ass to remove

So that’s that… well, almost that. Omarion, the annoying downstairs African, brought me down to the basement to show me where the water comes from when it rains. One would think that I’ll have time to water seal that area later, but I’ll have to do it much sooner than that. See, after today, it’s going to be raining throughout this and next week. Wonderful. Just another problem attached to a property I don’t own. By the way, Omarion has had a major attitude during this whole ordeal and I've been slightly tempted to beat his ass. The only thing that keeps me from losing it with him is that he has every right to be upset. The Africans have now gone two weeks without hot water, and boiling water consistently will definitely raise their gas bill.

Property Chi has officially wiped out all my profits for the month, and I’ll be very lucky if I escape June with $1000 in all my accounts combined. It’s really depressing to see all this money wasted. I made a lot of mistakes because I’ve never dealt with an issue like this before. I’ve never dealt with insurance companies and I’ve never had a sewer trap break. The experience I gained is valuable, but could not have come at a worst time. All that free rent money that came in from newly-bought property Charlie is gone, along with any hopes of me having 15k in my account at the end of the year. The best I can hope for is $10,000, and that’s IF there are no more issues over at that damned place. The way this month has been going, however, leads me to believe that more annoying repairs are on the way. July has got to be better than this.