Sewage leak in Tower Village apartment

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Last Tuesday, Oct. 30, juniors Rebecca Morris and Dori Welch came home to their Tower Village apartment to find their toilet and bathtub overflowing with mud, which trailed out into the living room.      

This is just one of several maintenance problems reported by University of Dallas students living in Tower Village, including the recent collapse of one apartment’s ceiling.  

The original problem for Morris and Welch began over a month ago, when they noticed little bits of water coming up whenever they walked over some of the floorboards in their kitchen, according to Morris. Tower Village sent a maintenance worker to look at it, who said that it was a slab leak and they couldn’t fix it until the rain stopped.

Once the rain did stop, Morris went back to the office to request maintenance. However, Tower Village has still not sent anyone to fix the leak.

The University News contacted Tower Village Apartments about the issue, but a Tower Village representative declined to comment.

When the rain started back up approximately two weeks ago, a moat of water started to form  around the juniors’ back porch after a water relief valve, an opening on a pipe that helps relieve water build up, popped up. When the water dried, their porch was left covered with dead cockroaches and toilet paper, according to Morris.

The pop-up valve is a preventative measure, according to Teresa Adrian, Code Enforcement Director for the City of Irving.

“There’s a pop-up valve on the sewer cleanout outside the building, and they are designed to pop up when there’s an overflow, which keeps it from going and backing up into the building, and so everything [happened] exactly in the way it was supposed to do,” Adrian said.

“Really nothing to be alarmed about, it’s just a typical day at work for us, and I’m sure for the apartment complex as well,” Adrian added.

Adrian also said the City of Irving received a call for the sewage overflow and issued a notice to the apartment complex explaining what the requirements were for the situation, which includes repairing it immediately and sanitizing everything.

Tower Village has already corrected this issue, according to Adrian.

Joe McCormick, an employee of Blann’s Sewer and Drain Services LLC, said that Tower Village called his company on Monday, Oct. 29, to do some digging for a building backup.

Blann’s Sewer and Drain tried to fix the backup by jetting, which is a plumbing method involving a blast of water at high pressure. This is what caused the overflow in the bathroom on Tuesday, according to Morris.

The same day, Morris called Tower Village, who sent Steam on the Go, and they cleaned up the overflow, leaving large fans and a dehumidifier to help dry the floor.

Morris still doesn’t know, however, if what they are doing in the backyard is going to prevent the water from coming up through the kitchen. She is hoping that if they do need to come into her apartment to fix it, she will not have to be temporarily relocated.

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