# Yikers! septic tank under master bed!



## damnplumber (Jan 22, 2012)

I had one yesterday... one bathroom backed up but the rest of the house draining just fine...one cleanout way over to the far end of the house...pulled the fully loaded unflushed toilet and ran the 1/2" snake 60' and nothing...run the seesnake with locater and it stops 10 feet away at a septic tank UNDER THE MASTER BED! this house is a contraption of addition on top of addition on top of another addition and some dummy built the bedroom on top of the septic tank. I was there 1.5 hours and charged only $275 for the removal of toilet, rooter job, camera and tank locating. The landlord never answered my calls but at least the tennent paid that bill. I will not even break out the jack hammer without a signed workorder from the owner...So here it is Sunday night and I havent had a return call so I'm gonna fill up the calendar with service calls untill he calls with an OK. So what do you do? the tennent needs this delt with and the landlord won't play.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Tell the tenant he's got a slumlord and probably will have to move to have working plumbing...
Pity it's only 5 days into the month...
Hope he hasn't paid the rent yet...


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## drs (Jun 17, 2011)

It's not their house so how can they give you the OK to do major work?

Landlord will not call you back because they do not want to spend any money and will think the problem will go away and right now I am sure they are shopping around for a cheaper price then to have it done right by you.

Even if the Tennent has cash for the total job, I still wait for the owner to show up and give me the OK.

ALWAYS CYA..


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## SewerRat (Feb 26, 2011)

Am I missing something here, or are you very lucky that the 50' of cable that coiled up inside the tank came back out without forming a rat's nest?


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## damnplumber (Jan 22, 2012)

SewerRat said:


> Am I missing something here, or are you very lucky that the 50' of cable that coiled up inside the tank came back out without forming a rat's nest?


Yep I got lucky indeed! Especially knowing the cable is in need of replacement with a few too many "curly cues" in it. That could have been a real bad day. What threw me off was there is a cleanout about 35 feet away and I "assumed" that was where my cable was going. But I soon found out it there is another septic tank.


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

Is this another house in Warrenville? Had a house with same problem.. opened the back door.. concrete pad there with floor mat, remove the mat and there's a access hole to septic tank.


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## SimplePlumber (Feb 1, 2012)

damnplumber said:


> I had one yesterday... one bathroom backed up but the rest of the house draining just fine...one cleanout way over to the far end of the house...pulled the fully loaded unflushed toilet and ran the 1/2" snake 60' and nothing...run the seesnake with locater and it stops 10 feet away at a septic tank UNDER THE MASTER BED! this house is a contraption of addition on top of addition on top of another addition and some dummy built the bedroom on top of the septic tank. I was there 1.5 hours and charged only $275 for the removal of toilet, rooter job, camera and tank locating. The landlord never answered my calls but at least the tennent paid that bill. I will not even break out the jack hammer without a signed workorder from the owner...So here it is Sunday night and I havent had a return call so I'm gonna fill up the calendar with service calls untill he calls with an OK. So what do you do? the tennent needs this delt with and the landlord won't play.


If you are doing a lot of service calls, it really helps to weed out a lot of these situations with a simple, seemingly inert sentence, when you take the initial call.

How will you be paying for this...cash, check, or credit card?

This does three important things...lets you know who the decision maker is, who is responsible for payment, and if you collect on site...that you will expect payment when complete.

That little step saved me a ton of time and money from tenants, building managers, and property managers saying, oh...just send the bill to the landlord. And...we know how that will end up when they get a large bill for a problem they didn't even know existed...saying, I never authorized that!?!?!.

I had a similar incident where a customer was on septic and years later the City ran the Sewer Mains in. Someone connected them to the new sewer line from the outlet line of the septic tank :blink:

Fun times.


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## Doubletap (May 5, 2010)

Just the other day I had a two story house. The tenant swears they are on sewer, and they are sort of... Only the top floor. The bottom floor goes into a septic tank....which is where my cable stayed until the tank was dug up and pumped. 
I already had a relationship with the home owner and when she said "oh ya..that happened about ten years ago. It cost me a bunch of money". I said "yes, this time is going to cost you a bunch of many as well"


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## SewerRat (Feb 26, 2011)

I pumped a tank in a crawlspace last summer. Same deal, addition was built right on top of it. Fun days dragging hoses under there and especially trying to lift the 8" thick x 24" square concrete lid while lying on my stomach with not even enough room to kneel.


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## azmike (Feb 3, 2010)

Thats why its illegal to build a structure over a septic tank. The house should be condemded until that problem is resolved!


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## azmike (Feb 3, 2010)

Also that means there probably is clay or concrete pipe under there as well and thats also illegal! Suppose to be cast or better. Tell the jerk your gonna turn him in to the adminstrative authority and see if he calls you back. He knows he's got a problem and he's avoiding you on purpose but thats not good for the welfare and saftey of his tennants!


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## BuckeyeBowhunte (May 4, 2011)

SewerRat said:


> Am I missing something here, or are you very lucky that the 50' of cable that coiled up inside the tank came back out without forming a rat's nest?



X10000

i learned that lesson the hard way once.:whistling2:


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## damnplumber (Jan 22, 2012)

*Six Days Later*

Still no return call, The tennent calls daily but I left my last attermpt last night. Tennent is going to call code inforcement today. What a piece of work...


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