Support Our Family After Flood

Never in a million years did I think I would need to create one of these fundraisers. I've helped fundraise for community members facing tragedies, Fire Departments, Children's Hospitals, ect so much over the years and not even one time did I ever think I would have to try to raise funds for my own family facing hardship. But this time, I'm at a loss. We're stretched as thinly as we can stretch and we've gone without for as long as we can go without. For those that don't know, Thursday May 8th the water to our apartment building was shut off (around 1:06 PM) to fix a clog from an apartment down the hall from us (maintenance said was from that apartment flushing wipes). 9PM and the drainage company said they still couldn't fix the clog and were leaving for the night but would be returning in the morning to continue trying. They put in a sub pump before leaving. 9:30PM Thursday night, a maintenance man and an office supervisor went around our building handing out a gallon of water (per apartment), and a key to an adjacent building with unlocked apartment numbers, in case the need to use the bathroom arose. "We're tough, we'll power through" we told ourselves. Not a big deal, it seemed at the time especially with families facing so much worse currently. 12:45 AM, I went to the kitchen for some water, unable to sleep due to the stress of worrying about the following morning and when my daughter would need to use the bathroom before daycare. I slipped but thankfully caught myself, on what I thought at the time was water. Flicked on the lights and realized that sewage water was pouring into my apartment from the hallway, through both of my doors (front door and fire door). Despite our best efforts, trying to block the river of sewage with out own blankets and towels and calling our complex's on call service, an hour later no one had responded. Then we called the fire department, unsure of what to do but informed enough to know the risks. The FD responded but were unable to help due to the severe health risks. They told us that if it was water, they could help suction it up but because it was sewage, they couldn't do much of anything. They then attempted for over 2 hours, to reach someone from our complex to call in a drainage team to assist. Their calls went unanswered so they left more than 2 hours after responding, telling us that if a fire started, to call them back. The next morning around 8 am, I saw a maintenance man in the hallway. Me and Jay called out of work for Friday, not sure what we would need to do next. Maintenance came and went throughout the building, even an assessor- inspecting the common areas like the hallway and laundry room and also the apartment where they claimed the clog had originated. Friday afternoon, a maintenance man told Jay that there was also tree roots invading some of the pipes. (Whatever that means, because I'm still unsure). Finally Friday afternoon the assessor visited our apartment. He told us that his recommendation, besides is not staying there, was that the floors needed to be ripped up and replaced and that the walls that had been affected and contaminated would also need to be torn down and replaced before the apartment could be considered habitable. So we packed up and thankfully stayed with family over the weekend, knowing it was not safe to stay in our apartment any longer. We had a total of 3 inches of raw sewage invade/flood our apartment floors. While we were packing and leaving, we told maintenance what we were doing. An office supervisor then told Jay that because the water was finally back on, no one had to leave their apartment! We stood there utterly shocked and disgusted. We said, there is sewage on our floors, of course we need to leave! The office supervisor looked embarrassed and uncomfortable but said again, because the water was back on, no tenants needed to leave their apartments and that a team would be coming in to extract the water, then clean and sanitize the floors and walls and then they would install dehumidifiers to help. We said, okay but the contamination and bacteria from the human feces floating around, was unsafe to be around to breathe in so we would still be leaving and would need our apartment locked up. They again tried to assure us that no one had to leave and at this point we told them that they were wrong and we were leaving. We asked, if we needed to stay in a hotel, who would be paying for that. They then told us that for that or any property damage, we would need to contact our own rental insurance to start the claim. We were shocked. This was not our fault nor could it have been prevented by us so why did our insurance company need to foot the bill and not theirs? The poor office supervisor did not have an answer for us other than, I will try to talk to the higher ups but right now this is what they are telling me. Shocked and disgusted, we packed up what we could and thankfully were able to spend the weekend at a relative's house. Fast forward to Sunday. We come home. We come home expecting the smell of chemical cleaners to be so great that maybe we need to leave for a longer time frame. We walk into our apartment and immediately notice that dehumidifiers have been set up, on our dime plugged in to our outlets, but also that nothing has been cleaned or sanitized! The majority of the water (not even all of it as we began moving objects and finding puddles under stuff) had been removed and the dehumidifiers were placed. Our floors still had literal (poo) on them! NOTHING was cleaned or sanitized. They only ripped up 90 percent of the hallway carpet (that had been so saturated with sewage it was floating). We also noticed that many of our walls have been marked as contaminated, nevermind 90 percent of our floors. We talk to the office and they tell us to continue running the dehumidifiers and it will all be reassessed on Monday. Here we are on Monday night, with no change. Last night, Sunday night... our first night back in our apartment, we had sewage leaking from our bathroom ceiling into our apartment! Now our upstairs neighbors are complaining about a clog! Office has been notified, no drainage company has been called in. They have trash bags tacked to our bathroom ceiling to "help prevent" the sewage from the second floor from leaking in to our apartment! Between the run around from the multi million (maybe billion, who knows!) dollar apartment complex, to those poor office workers and maintenance crew, no one has answers. No one had any clue when any of this will really be fixed or livable. The apartment complex claims that because the water is back on, we can live here despite the bacteria and contamination from sewage. We're hoping to at least raise enough that we can relocate until we know how to proceed. I know this was a lot to read and if you've made it to this point, I just want you to know how much we appreciate you and the time you've taken to hear us. We've had to temporarily relocate ourselves at our own cost, throw away thousands of dollars worth of our furniture (kitchen/dinning room, living room, bathroom and bedroom) and 80 percent of our toddler's toys. We're still dealing with the uninhabitable living space (because we have nowhere we can go besides a shelter now) and emotional/physical toll this is taking on our family. We're severely sleep deprived and physically unwell because of all of this and at this point are quite literally begging for any help we can get. Please, even if you cannot donate (which we totally understand because times are so tough), please just share this. We never ask for help, we always figure everything out for ourselves but we've hit a wall. Our living costs keep increasing, despite us not even living here some of the time due to this problem. Our electric company just I formed us that due to the dehumidifiers, our monthly electric bill is rising from $90-100 per month to $435 (at least) per month! We need a little help. We would like to relocate to a habitable apartment but we do not have first, last or security due to our already high rent and increasing bills. My goal is to raise just enough to get my family somewhere safe until we can figure out the rest. Me and Jay both work full time+ (he works 60+ hr weeks) and still cannot figure out how to get back on our feet after this, without help. If you do donate and/or share, please know that you're generosity and help is not taken for granted and that we so very, VERY much appreciate how you help our family! We are also contacting the appropriate channels to help us get this resolved but have been warned how time consuming it will be and how it could be months to even years before we receive any type of help/assistance or retribution for our issues. We fully understand how tough times are and how very few have anything to spare so if you are able to help in any way, please know how extremely grateful we are! And we personally want to thank you for helping our family!