There's a Hole in the Street...and other drama...

A few years back we had a leak in our yard from underground pipe. Upon digging things up, our plumber discovered a lead fitting which connected our water supply to the city main. Under government regulations, this needed to be replaced. So our plumber replaced the leaky pipe as well as the fitting which attached our pipes to the city water main. This included sections of pipe and the fitting that were underneath the city street. According to our city's policy, the homeowner "owns" all water pipes up to the main, even if those pipes are under the city street. At that time, we paid $1500 to have the necessary work done.

At the end of last November/beginning of December, we received a call from the city saying that we had a leak in the street coming from one of our pipes. In the street, there was water squeezing through cracks in the street. not a lot of water but water nonetheless. We contacted the plumber who did the original work and he said he didn't know if it was our pipe or the city's that was leaking but that he would put us on the calendar for the next week to come out and use a camera to see what was leaking. It snowed later that week (like a lot of snow) and he never came. We weren't too worried about it seeing as there was snow everywhere. The city did call again probably ten days after their original call and I told them I had contacted our plumber and was waiting for him to come out. I contacted the plumber again and he said he would be out but not to get too worried unless the leak started to leak in a different way. Two days before Christmas, about three weeks from the first phone call from the city, we were getting ready to go out of town and noticed that the leak had now moved to a different spot in the street. I contacted both our plumber and the city and told them this. The plumber said it would be fine, to not worry about it. The city continued to say it wasn't their problem. We then went and did our Christmas traveling, returning a few days later, and find sawhorses and a hole in front of our house. Someone had come up and worked on the leak. No one called us to tell us they were going to do the work so we didn't know who it was. We called our plumber who said it wasn't them. So we called the city who had indeed come up and done the work. They told us that it was creating a mess and so they had to do the work on Christmas Eve. I spoke again with our plumber expressing concern over the city doing the work and that this was probably going to create a problem. The plumber told us not to worry about it until we got a bill. Two months go by and we finally receive a bill from the city. For $1008. $1000 in labor and $8 in parts. 5 men working at $25 an hour. 5 men digging one hole who apparently needed to use a backhoe for 5 hours to dig that hole. (Which is still has not been backfilled or refilled with cement.)

I then contacted both the city and the plumber saying the two of them needed to get together and discuss what was going on with this situation. After a month of twisting arms to try to get the plumber to go look at the part and determine if he was responsible, I finally heard from the city that the part simply failed and that the plumber was not responsible. Or it could have been pitted when the backfilled the dirt but who really knows. I placed multiple calls over a three week period to our plumber asking for him to verify that this was his position but he never returned my calls. I then contacted our attorney. Who told me that neither she or her partner could really help us as she was the attorney for the plumber and her partner was connected to the city. They referred us to someone else who referred us to someone else who referred us to someone else all because each attorney had a conflict of interest in helping us. We finally ended up with an attorney who we did not know who said he would look into it. 3 weeks later, after several calls to him, he finally calls us back to say that he spoke with the water department manager of the city and that the man is unwilling to budge on the bill. The attorney feels like he can't help us and that the only avenue left is to try to prove the plumber's negligence in small claims court. Which I don't know that I can do because the part may have just been defective. Obviously, if he had come out sooner the city wouldn't have gotten involved but I'm not sure this is negligence/shoddy work.

Anyone reading this want to scream? It is beyond maddening. We have the city who came out and simply performed a task with no notice that they were going to do so and then bills us an outrageous amount. We have a plumber who is absolving himself of any responsibility in his initial work and then in his failure to act on the second problem in a timely way. We have a bunch of lawyers who all are connected to the city or the plumber and are unable to give even simple advice. And us? Well we have a $1000 bill and a big hole in front of our house. I find myself in one of those situations where I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. I am not looking for a fight. I'm not trying to be difficult. I simply want other people to do the right thing by us. What's the godly response, the one that is not vindictive or spiteful but doesn't allow yourself to be taken advantage of?

We're now onto contacting the city attorney and contesting our bill as well as contacting our city council representative. (Who I don't even know who it is. How bad is that? We're "outsiders" in this town so we just don't know all of the ins and outs and to be honest, that's one of those things we should know and don't.) As to the plumber, I'm not sure what we can do. Anyone got any ideas? Anybody else been in a situation like this, where you feel like you're being treated unfairly but don't feel like you have a lot of recourse?