Support Needed: Leak Jeopardizes Carrerow Couple's Life

This is not what we wanted to do, believe me, but it’s all I can think of. We can’t afford pride or fear of embarrassment. So, here goes….

As John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Well, our plan is to sell our house in Nevada and move to Grass Valley, Calif., where I already have a job waiting for me, and it would put us closer to grandkids and friends, and then ... life happened. We heard water running, like a hose was left on outside, but that wasn’t the case. It turns out that we have a leak under our concrete slab foundation. We had a “leak detector” come out not once, but four times. It seems the science of finding a leaky pipe is not as exact as we were lead to believe and we now have three large holes in our bathroom and a sump pump in one of the holes sucking out water when we are forced to turn it on for periodic use.

Now, while the “leak detector” company said they’ll refund our $600, our homeowner’s insurance refuses to pay for anything (even though they initially said they would) and that’s our dilemma. So far the bill comes to $6,254. We’ve paid out $2,457 and the plumbers, who have been out four or five times said they wanted a partial payment of $2,000 before they’ll even schedule us for continued work. This still leaves a balance of almost $4,000 and frankly, we have no idea what the eventual total might be. But we do know that after the next plumbers’ visit, in which they’re planning to enlarge the main hole and hopefully repair the pipe, they will demand more payment before finishing the job. If all goes well, finishing the job will include filling and cementing the holes and installing new floor covering. That’s why we’re asking for help, because life happened and we can’t go forward with our plans, or even have consistent running water, until we get this taken care of and sell our house. We also just found out today (June 6), that the plumbing company is putting a pre-lien on the house, until we can pay them. As many of you already know, we are seniors with limited income (mainly Social Security).

Because we don’t know what this will end up costing, we’ve put a rather high goal amount. If indeed, the repairs cost less than what we receive, we will divide the money amongst those who can donate and refund the leftover proceeds.

We really really appreciate any donations.

Thank you,

Jack and Jo Carrerow