For the past three years, Ken and Gloria Spooner have been afraid to leave their Eighth St. home for even a weekend, worried that raw sewage could back up into their basement at any time.
The Spooners have been back and forth with the Town of Collingwood since a wastewater backup on Oct. 3, 2020 left their basement flooded with raw sewage.
The couple wants the town to take responsibility for the damage and fix the sewer line.
While their plumber insists the blockage is on the sewer main below the street, as does a former town staffer who was working that day, the town’s insurance company refuses to pay for damages, saying their fight should instead be with the contractor hired by the town.
“I’m 72. Gloria is 70. We’re in here, cleaning up this,” Ken told CollingwoodToday. “Whenever a sink backs up, we relive it.”
“The last three years goes through my head all the time,” he adds.
Both born and raised in Collingwood, the Spooners moved into their home on Eighth St. in 1977 and raised their children there.
“I fell in love with it,” said Gloria.
Over the years, Ken says there were minor problems with the sewers, which he thinks may have been caused by trees planted along the boulevard in the early 1990s. As the roots of the trees grew deeper, they may have interfered with the sewer lines. He would see town workers attend the street to flush out the sewer lines on a regular basis, and would call a plumber every three to five years to flush out his own lines as a regular practice.
That was, until the town replaced the sanitary sewer and services system on Eighth St. in 2018 during a full road reconstruction between Hurontario Street and Birch Street.
For about two years after the sewer was replaced, all seemed OK.
However on Oct. 3, 2020, raw sewage backed up into the basement washroom of the Spooners’ home. Ken’s 90-year-old mother was living in the basement at that time, having just moved in in May 2020.
“It started bubbling up through the drain in the bathroom floor,” said Ken. “We assumed it was the roots. We called a plumber, but it was a Saturday.”
Ken and Gloria resorted to using any open washroom they could find, at Metro or Walmart, or in some cases, using a bucket.
They used any mats and towels they could find in the house to contain the mess in the basement.
“With paper towel, we were limited because most of the stores were sold out at that time,” recalls Ken. “It was a nightmare.”
Terry Nash of Terry Nash Plumbing went to the Spooner's house on Oct. 5, 2020 and spent two days there. A copy of the invoice he gave the Spooners was provided to CollingwoodToday.
“Snaked drains 90 feet to centre of street. No luck, called city and was advised it was customer’s problem. Dug up front lawn to install cleanouts and snaked again. No luck, called city again and they came and flushed sewers, and they are OK now,” reads the notes on the invoice.
The Spooners paid Nash $3,690.58 for the services he provided.
After that, Ken says things were quiet for about six months.
“(The town) would spontaneously come and backflush,” he said.
However, in April 2021, sewage started coming up the basement again. Ken went straight to the town offices, and he says they sent works staff to flush the wastewater lines under street again.
At this time, the town started flushing the lines on the street regularly. When too many weeks go by without a flush, Ken says inevitably, he finds sewage back in his basement bathroom.
Ken counts two more times this has happened since, in May 2021 and December 2022.
“It wasn’t as bad, and we called the town and they came right up here,” said Ken.
In September 2021, the Spooners filed a claim against the town’s insurance to try to recoup some of their financial losses. In June 2022, adjuster Scott Anderson of Claimspro sent the Spooners a letter, saying that the Town of Collingwood was not liable for damages to the Spooner home from the sewage backup.
In the letter, Anderson noted that as per the town’s contract for the work, the subcontractor is responsible to respond to any claims arising out of the work.
“Please accept this letter as confirmation that our principles will not consider any claims arising out of this matter,” wrote Anderson.
Former town employee (and current town councillor) Chris Potts was working in the public works department at the time of the incident, and attended the scene on Oct. 8, 2020. In a letter he provided to the Spooners that was included in their insurance claim, Potts says he used a camera to view the town’s side of the sewer.
“I began videoing the sewer and came across a blockage approximately three feet from the manhole under the road,” wrote Potts, noting a flusher truck was brought in to flush the main, which cleared out a blockage.
“I explained my findings to my then-supervisor that there was no issue with the lateral,” Potts wrote.
Ken says he’s met with various town public works staff, director of public works Peggy Slama and the town’s chief administrative officer Sonya Skinner. He has also brought concerns to previous town mayors Brian Saunderson, Keith Hull, and current Mayor Yvonne Hamlin.
While he says some staffers have been sympathetic, he says he feels no one at the town level has taken his concerns seriously to the point of making any long-term plans to ensure the backups don’t continue.
“I don’t trust anybody at this point,” said Ken.
Ken says the town has suggested he install a backflow valve. Ken claimed the work would take days and was not possible while his mother lived in the basement.
Ken’s mother died in June of this year, at the age of 93.
He estimates he and Gloria have put out about $4,500 between plumbing fees, cleaning products and the costs of having to restore their front yard.
This amount does not include the impact to the fair market value of their home should they ever choose to sell, as they would have to disclose the ongoing sewer issues to any new owner.
Ken says he’s been advised he should hire a lawyer to go after the town, but as both he and Gloria currently live on pensions, that is not an option they can afford.
“It was money we didn’t have, for all of this, let alone to hire a lawyer,” he said.
He hopes to be paid back by the town for the money he is out, however more importantly, he wants the town to properly fix the issues with the main sewer line on the street.
“I don’t want a bandage. That’s what (the flushing) and the backflow valve is,” said Ken.
He also notes he feels fighting the town through legal means would be a losing battle.
“We pay taxes. (The town) uses that to pay a lawyer. So, you’re fighting yourself. It’s redundant. It’s frustrating,” he said. “It’s not my fault that this backed up, and I’m the one that’s paying. I feel stonewalled.”
When reached by CollingwoodToday, the town’s director of public works, engineering and environmental services Peggy Slama acknowledged the town’s ongoing discussions with the Spooners.
“This was unpleasant for him and his family, and we understand the stress and trauma homeowners experience when this occurs. We do not want this to happen to anyone,” said Slama.
She notes that the town fully co-operated with the insurance investigation providing information on construction and video footage of the completed works.
“We have been working with the family to investigate the infrastructure that was constructed,” said Slama. “This has included video review of the main and service pipes underground, and confirmation of the pipe information through field verification.”
She notes that Eighth St. is one of about nine locations across Collingwood where public works staff do regular, pro-active flushing due to low flows or minimum slope in town pipes.
According to Slama, town staff have committed to have an engineering consultant look at the design, confirm construction information, and provide a professional opinion if the sanitary main was designed and installed improperly.
Collingwood council approved a motion at their Oct. 3 meeting to have a report come back to council on the matter in three months with the outcome of that consultation, which will include next steps. Coun. Chris Potts was absent from the meeting.
