Local family's home destroyed by sewage

Michelle Taylor stands in the hollowed out remains of what used to be her kitchen, floor stripped down to the plywood, walls cut two feet up, doors missing and appliances waiting to be thrown away.

She fights back tears when she says her children ask her when they can return to their home at Pinnacle Crossing off South Post Road, and she has no answer.

She said they might never come back.

Last Thursday, Taylor’s 6-year-old son said he heard a rushing noise like ocean waves and moments later, brown, sludgy water was exploding out of the toilets and showers and rushing into the crawlspace of the house. Smelly sewage flooded the floor several inches deep, displacing the family of four and destroying most of their belongings. Taylor said a neighbor saw nearby manhole covers blown several feet into the air from the force of the liquid rushing down the pipes and directly to her house.

Taylor wants answers as to how this happened and who is responsible.

She said a plumber came out to take a look and said he’d never seen anything like it before. American Restoration mitigation teams started work on the house last week, stripping out floors, removing doors and throwing away furniture. One employee said when they first started work, the house smelled like a porta-potty left sitting out on a hot summer day.

Michelle Taylor and her husband, Nicholas Taylor, and their two children moved from Colorado into the brand new home at Pinnacle Crossing nearly two years ago and decided the white farm-style house with its red front door was their “forever home.” She said they closed on the sale Dec. 2, 2021.

“It was perfect timing,” she said. “We’re close to Pinnacle where my kids go to school. It’s on a cul de sac. This home was literally perfect.”

The house is located at the end of Pinnacle Crossing, down a hill and nestled at the end of the street.

She said they moved to Shelby to be closer to family and thought they’d landed their dream home. She said they poured everything into the house, spending thousands on landscaping.

Then came the nightmare on Oct. 19.

“My son heard what he thought was an ocean,” Taylor said. “He said it sounded like Great Wolf Lodge.”

She said all the sewer came from uphill and directly to their house at the bottom of the street.

“It came spewing out of the toilets, showers, we’re talking an explosion,” she said. “This thing had some major force behind it.”

They immediately got out of the house as inches of water, sewage, sludge and silt filled every corner of their 1,750-square-foot home.

Her father in law went to check out the crawl space and shut the water main off, thinking that would help.

Taylor said she called 911, was told they couldn’t help, called Shelby Utilities, couldn’t get through to them and drove directly to the office in tears.

She said a city employee was sent out and she was assured the city would take care of the family, including with housing expenses.

Taylor said that hasn’t happened ,and she and her husband have had to pay out of pocket hotel expenses and are searching for an Airbnb for a longer stay.

She said when she called the city back, she was told they hadn’t found anything to indicate the city was liable. She said workers sent a scope with a camera into the sewer lines but then she heard nothing back.

She said she feels there was some kind of backflow malfunction or an issue at the wastewater treatment plant.

“Somebody goofed up,” she said. “It came from the city sewer main.”

Shelby City Manager Rick Howell said the city is still investigating the situation.

“This is an unfortunate event for the Taylor family,” he wrote in an email to The Star. “My heart goes out to them.  The matter has been turned over to our insurer and is still under investigation by them so it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Although he couldn’t speak as to the cause, he said other homeowners in the development can rest easy.

“I can say that there is evidence to strongly suggest it is an isolated event,” Howell wrote.

He said no one from the city has declared anything about liability to the homeowner to his knowledge.

“This is a very emotional situation for the impacted family,” Howell said. “In order to do their job correctly the insurer must complete the investigation to make a determination. Assumptions as to cause without facts to back them up are not helpful to anyone.”

He said there would be no further statements issued on the matter until the investigation is complete.

Taylor said in the meantime, it will be six months or longer before the house is habitable again.

“My life has been ruined temporarily,” she said. “I have a 6 and 7 year old asking when they can come home. Our dog Gizmo has to stay at my father-in-law’s house. I try to just keep a game face on and just advocate for my family.”

At night, when she can’t sleep, she submits receipts to their insurance company. She said she and her husband have been in contact with an attorney and plan to file a lawsuit against the city.

“This is what our forever home is reduced to, wood flooring, drywall, mattresses on the floor, all our belongings destroyed through no fault of our own,” Taylor said. “It’s horrific."

She said the holidays are just around the corner, and they won’t get to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in their home.

“It's a 2-year-old house, who would ever think something like this would ever happen or could happen,” she said. “We're not talking about a toilet overflow, we’re talking about a tidal wave of poop.”

She said even when it is repaired, she doesn’t know if they’ll ever be able to move back in.

The memories and the fear that it could happen again mean they may be looking for a new forever home.

The family also started a GoFundMe to help with costs.

Reporter Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Local family's home destroyed by sewage