We have sewer permission

Before we purchased the empty lot, at Jane's request, we contacted all pertinent parties to make sure we could actually get a functional house built that we could afford. Among other things we obtained a bid from two general contractors, ensured that the bank would give us money, checked for flooding, and contacted all utilities - Caseyville sewer being one of those utilities. They looked at their map of the area and said that there was a sewer tap just in front of our driveway - they even spray painted a little green hash mark on the sidewalk branching off of the green line they spray painted down the middle of the street.

Everything checked out so we bought the lot and started the construction process.

Shortly before we actually broke ground I ran across Jim, the contractor building the split-level. He asked what we were doing for sewer access; I told him we had a tap almost directly in front of our driveway. He said we were lucky, he did not have a tap (the two lots used to be one large one), and could not get Truman’s permission to access the sewer line on his property. So Jim was going to have to dig down 20 feet or so to the sewer, remove half of the street doing so, and install a tap.

Then the sewer company ran a camera down the pipe and realized that – oops – their map was off by 50ft. They crossed out our green hash mark and put one in the correct spot. Placing the tap conveniently directly in front of Jim’s lot and placing Danielle and I up the creek without a paddle, or more accurately up the sewer without a tap.

We had met Truman when we brought little goodie baskets to our three neighbors. One of the many things he talked about was how Jim wanted to put a sewer line on his property, and he unwaveringly said no. And since I had now heard both Jim’s version of the story and Truman’s, I knew it was an unmistakable “no” and both parties knew it.

Before we left for India we knew the sewer would be an issue, and when we got back it had developed into two basic options – go to the street for $15K to 20K, or go on Truman’s property for much much less.

So on Sunday evening I went and asked Truman for permission to have our sewer cross his property. He literally said no before I had completed the request. He was even a little offended when I offered money. J But we talked about it for a while, and once he realized that our other option was to dig up half of the street (he thought the sewer was next to the street, not under it – we walked down to the corner of the street and looked at the manhole covers) he said that he wasn’t saying no but he wasn’t saying yes. I said I would talk to Terry and get more info, then call him and we could talk more. He basically had three concerns: 1) who pays for it if there is a problem (especially if one of us no longer lives there); 2) damage to the environment negatively affecting the wildlife; and 3) everyone will want to use his sewer line.

So I called Terry on Monday and verify that the three small orange painted trees is where our sewer line will link up with the main line. He said it was and that our line would go down a little valley behind our walkout.

That night Danielle tells me that she stopped past the house, and ran into Truman. He was a little upset that someone had spray painted his trees. She assured him that we were not proceeding without his permission.

Tuesday morning I call Truman to set up an appointment to walk around the woods where the sewer line will actually go. He stated that he was about to call the police about trespassers painting his trees. He had called the Bergmans (neighbors to the back) and Jim the contractor, and they didn’t know anything about it. So the next option was to report trespassers to the local law enforcement. I told him it was probably the sewer company marking the sewer when they marked everything else. He seemed ok with that, but was going to call the sewer company to verify. We agreed to meet at 5:30 to see the sewer site.

I immediately called Terry to find out if he painted the trees or had the sewer company do it. He said that he had done it about two weeks prior, after walking through with a rep from the sewer company, so we could find it again. Since it is an old sewer line they have to use line of sight from manhole cover to manhole cover to find it; newer lines have a wire embedded in them that they can trace with detector.

So I called Truman to solve the mystery of the spray painted trees. Once I could say with confidence who had done it, and that it was water based paint that would go away in a month or so, he was ok with it.

As soon as I got there we put on our pond shoes and walked down. (Along the way I saw another car battery.) Once we got to the spot we talked a little. I assured him that we would plant trees and things back (he said they didn’t have to be nice trees, just any tree will do), we would stay there for several years, and that we wouldn’t let others access it. Then he said yes.

We walked up the draw to our house a little and saw Terry. Terry immediately confessed and apologized for the tree painting. Truman told him that we could cross his property to the sewer (I was actually happy to have a witness). Terry gave him more construction details, take out as few trees as possible, and drag the brush onto my side of the line.

On the walk out I gathered a bunch of trash (I brought a trash bag for this reason), and we saw Truman’s gray cat walk by. It was waiting for us at his house when we got there.

Next step is the get something more legal done. But the plumber can start his thing now that we know which way to slope things.

DWC