Sewage Backup in Nantucket Home Causes Grief to One Family

12/30/2015 (Permalink)

Sewage backup in a crawlspace can lead to strong odors and health issues for those who live in the home.

In our line of work, we realize our customers face emergencies like water damages or biohazards that take them by surprise. When they choose us to solve those problems for them, we are gratified in so many ways.

We received a call in August from a property manager on Nantucket who knew of a family who had discovered septic waste had backed up under their house and into a crawlspace. The heat of the summer intensified the odor from the black water, which was seeping into their living space.

To make the circumstances more of a challenge, some of the backup was under the bedroom of their disabled child. They feared for the health and well-being of their son and the prospect of packing up the items needed for his care and relocating everyone in the family, pushed this situation into a crisis. They needed help urgently, and having never encountered this type of problem, they turned to their friend who was a local property manager for advice.

We often receive calls from property managers when they are faced with emergencies at the properties they are trusted to protect. This property manager had worked with us on previous occasions, was happy with the service that SERVPRO of Upper Cape Cod and the Islands provided to his clients (our customers) and even though the family was not his customer, he offered to help.

The property manager called our office and explained the problem, putting us in contact with our customer. We dispatched our crew who visited the job site that afternoon and, upon arrival, discovered some areas in the crawlspace had a clearance height of just 12 inches. Our Crew Chief suited up in protective gear and crawled into the mire to assess the degree of the biohazard. It was clear that it  would not only require a couple of days to extract the large amount of sewage, clean-up, disinfect and dry out, but that we would need special equipment to clean up the tight areas.

We keep our warehouses on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard fully stocked with equipment, chemicals and supplies, so we are ready to tackle jobs quickly. To the relief of our customers, we were able to clean-up of this sewage back-up  quickly. Their son did not have to be relocated and life could go back to normal...making this biohazard like it never even happened.