HELP US REBUILD OUR HOME AFTER FLOODED WITH SEWAGE FROM A SEWER MAIN LINE BREAK...

What would You do if this Happened to You?

Ten Days ago Our Lives were Changed Forever...

7/15/25 8:30 A.M.

I went to Costco to get our monthly supplies. At 9:05 AM I grabbed one item and then I was alerted from our ring doorbell. When I looked at the camera, I saw our complete driveway was flooded up to our home with sewage water from a sewer main break in the center of the road in front of our house. I rushed home and found Our house completely surrounded with sewage. The firemen on scene told me do not attempt to enter your home that is hazardous waste. But I explained to them we had a dog inside and I was going to get him out. So I ran through ankle deep sewage to enter Our home. They told me to turn off any power in the house. We had two air conditioners running on opposite ends of the house so I ran in both bedrooms, shut those off, grabbed Our dog and ran back outside. I noticed the sewage water had already flooded into our breezeway area and was filling Our window wells. But I ran out with our dog I asked the fireman to get a pump truck there too save our home. They said the county was on the way. I put our dog in my work van and the fire department took me to Neighbor's house to wash the sewage off of me.

After they were done, I ran back over to our house and I saw the front window of our basement brake with the pressure of the water and sewage water started flooding in the basement. I was informed that the sewer line was a gravity fed system and they had to wait for the flow to slow down before they could do anything. So for seven hours, we sat outside our home and watched the sewage seep inside. They were worried that the weight of the pump trucks on the road would make the road cave in so they could not get close to our home to save it. There was nothing anyone could do but sit and wait. After a long excruciating day, they were able to stop the flow of water. They tried to put some sandbags in front of the main window that had broke out to slow the flow. But it was already too late. Our basement flooded and destroyed our entire basement. Our basement was our sanctuary full of Collectibles. We have been collecting vintage Halloween and Rock 'n' Roll memorabilia for years. I used to tour with rock bands and many of the items were Priceless abd irreplaceable. Also, we love horror, movies, and Halloween. We have an extensive vintage Halloween mask collection from the 60s and 70s as well.

Many of the masks survived, but a lot of our Rock 'n' Roll memorabilia and other items were completely destroyed. I just finished restoring a vintage 80s Tama Granstar Drum Set a couple weeks before and I hadn't even played one beat on it!

In addition to my Construction Business we also own a Halloween Website YOURWORSTNIGHTMARES.COM

where we sell New and Vintage Masks and other Items. We were just getting things ready for a big Halloween XSPO coming up in October at the Spokane Convention Center. So my basement was filled with many Brand New items that were also destroyed during the Flood. Although a lot of the items are priceless. Nothing was more priceless than all of our keepsakes we had stored in the back room. We had all of our baby pictures, yearbooks, and memories from all of our family growing up. My family lived in that home for over 40 years. So I had a lot of items from my mother who had passed away. Including all of her yearbooks and letters to my Dad from her when he was serving in Vietnam.

Also several boxes full of family pictures from myself and my wife and all of our kids and grandkids.

We also lost a Pantry Full of Food and 2 Refrigerators and 2 Freezers Full of Food when the power was turned off and our Home Deemed Uninhabitable by the Fire Department.

So for the last 10+ days Service Master the Mitigation Company has been pulling out box after box of our memories. Dragging them out to my backyard and laying them on plastic so I could sort through them in 90° heat one by one to try to salvage anything I could. And Not much could be saved because it wasn't just Water Damage but Toxic Sewer Water! All the while my Wife had to stay at the hotel with our little Special Needs Dog that we took on after my Mom had passed away. He has high anxiety and gets upset when we leave him and becomes highly destructible to himself and his surroundings. My wife has Nerve damage from getting Shingles in her facial nerves years ago. When she gets Stressed it aggravates the condition. She had to take a Full Week off of work to watch our dog because he has separation anxiety and living in a Hotel has been hell on him. I had to take 2 Weeks off from my Contractor Work to deal with everything.

So this has been an EXTREME Financial Burden to our Family. Not to mention the Mental, Emotional and Physical Pain we Continue to Endure!

We figure The Collectibles and New Items we have lost were Valued at Over $200000.

We purchased the home for my father about four years ago. We just finished the Complete remodel of upstairs and downstairs of our home within the last couple years! So that makes it even more painful to have this happen!

We have Insurance on our home and thought we were going to be taken care of to at least Rebuild our home....

But after a few days we were contacted by our insurance company and told that they do not cover sewer main brakes. Then we were notified by our insurance company and Spokane County that this is not a liability issue. The sewer main was installed in the 90s. And the iron pipe that they use is supposed to last 100 years. So after an investigation, they found out that the sewer Main had a failure. But it was the pipe itself that failed and not from poor Maintenance.

Spokane County pulled out the records from the 90s to see if the company that sold them the pipe was still in business and they were not. So there is really nothing we can do at this point.

Out of Goodwill the County has offered to Repair our home to make it livable again and we appreciate their offer.

So that being said NONE of this money from the GoFundMe will be used to Rebuild our Collections!

Any Money Donated will go towards paying for loss of income during the disaster and to help cover the things in the Rebuild that won't be covered.

We have Both worked Our Asses off for what we have and NEVER asked for a Handout From ANYONE!

When this first happened several of our friends said we needed to start a GoFundMe! But my Pride said NO!

But at this point we Really have no choice but to ask for some help!

We appreciate ANYTHING ANYONE can donate to Help our Situation! We have given many times to these Fundraisers and Now find ourselves in need!

So if you could do without a Cup of Coffee to Help us we would be Forever Grateful!

Also if you Could Please Share Our Story if even just to make Everyone Aware to check Your Insurance Policies to see if You are Covered in the Event of a Sewer Main Break! We were told unless you have special coverage, the majority of insurance policies do not cover this!

So do yourselves a favor and call your insurance agent and specifically ask about this!

WE WOULDN'T WISH THIS ON ANYONE!

Thank You for Anything you can do!

DARRIN & STEPHANIE WILLIAMS

& TOBY TOO! ❤️