Family Displaced When Home Becomes River of Raw Sewage Sues

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If you think road construction has complicated your life, consider living the life of the Penberthy family, who are holed up in a hotel after their Rochester Hills home was flooded during the Hamlin Road expansion project.

The city filed a condemnation complaint to gain a 30-foot right-of-way easement to the family’s home do the construction, but Mary Penberthy told The Detroit News officials aren’t doing much to rectify the estimated $250,000 problem.

When a crew hired to move a gas line severed a sewer pipe in June, raw sewage filled the basement of the four-bedroom farmhouse, then spewed from sinks onto the main floor. In July, the property was flooded after a crew hit a water main, damaging the property the family was able to save from the sewer line break. The following day, more raw sewage backed up into the basement of the home.

“It’s not like we did the damage,” Penberthy said. “It has been one thing after another, and now the house is beginning to show more damage, with mold growing inside it.”

The city of Rochester Hills and the Penberthy family are fighting the issue out in court,

Timothy S. Ferrand, an attorney for the city, told The Detroit News the city “has gone out of its way to help the family,” but their beef should be with the contractor, not the municipality.

“There is a claims process and due process that they seem to want to go around,” Ferrand told the newspaper.

» Read more about the family’s ordeal on The Detroit News.