Hurricane Irene 7 months later

Eight months ago I took a plunge and bought a house, scared of having to deal with it all on my own, but excited that my daughter and I would have a nice place to live with a beautiful yard, in a town that boasted a pretty good school system.  My concerns with buying a house centered around having to take care of the potential work and problems that come with home ownership, all by myself.  I already have next to no free time, and the free time I do have is created due to an exhausting organizational scheme that I've put in place but pretty much leaves me in a constant state of anxiety.  I really can't handle any more unforeseen issues, so I carefully chose my new home so that any problems would be minimal.  New roof, new this, new that, everything new and upgraded, etc. 

After an exhausting move (I did all of the packing myself, dealt with the moving day myself, and unpacked myself over the next week), I was thrilled with the choice I made.  One month later in comes Hurricane Irene.  By Sunday morning after the Hurricane I was relieved to see that I had no flooding in my basement, our neighborhood hadn't lost power, and I seemed to have suffered no harm.  However, I did hear that the rivers nearby were expected to rise and cause flooding across the street from me, so I decided to stay home from work Monday to be 100% certain I was out of the woods.  On Monday many of my neighbors were around as well and I met many of them for the first time.  We joked about how this was quite a way to welcome me into the neighborhood.   I stored some of my neighbors things in my garage and they set me up with a generator just in case we lost power (I have sump pumps).  Around 11 AM, I noticed that my basement was starting to get wet and the source was the toilet in the bathroom down there.  It didn't really dawn on me that this was a major problem, so I simply went out to home depot to by some cleaning supplies.  By the time I came back, this toilet was pumping out water so fast that it was flooding my basement.  Soon I started to notice that this wasn't simply water, but also had some nice chunks of God-knows-what mixed in as well.  Now in a panic I called my father and he called the town's water and sewer department.  By the time they came, there was already a few inches of water in my basement and they couldn't seem to stop it.  Finally, they were able to plug up the toilet and the pressure from the sewer system subsided.  I kind of broke down at that moment, I was so in shock.

I had no idea the hell I would go through over the next two months.  Still recovering from my move, I now had to deal with endless clean up and contractors most of which either showed up but never gave me an estimate, or didn't even show up at all.  In the meantime, I also began researching this incident and filed a claim against the town.  The sewer system is not supposed to discharge back into a home like this, but this appears to be more common now that so many houses are connected to these older lines.  Since the basement was now gutted, I could also see an underlying problem with the house's drain and sump pump system that appeared to be long standing.  My cleaning woman, who happened to be the cleaning woman for the people that owned the house before me, casually mentioned that the previous owners installed one of my sump pumps in response to some water penetration that had.    WHAT???  My heart sank....these people that sold me the house claimed they never had water problems and never disclosed this fact.   I then began a crusade to figure out what else, if anything, they lied about that put me in my current predicament.  In the meantime I confronted the previous owners about what I discovered, and they denied it, basically calling the cleaning woman a liar.  When I spoke to the cleaning woman again, she was all upset about being caught in the middle, and denied she ever told me about the water issue.  Disgusted that she was lying to me now, I told her to go f#$% herself and couldn't believe someone can lie like that to avoid "getting involved". 

After doing some more painstakingly lengthy and tiring research, I discovered that the sellers of my home indeed told me a second lie.  They are the ones that installed the basement bath, and they did so without permits.  I got a friend to send me the listing of the house from 10 years ago when they bought it, and lo and behold that bathroom was not listed.  I then nervously called the man that sold them the house 10 years ago and he was more than willing to confirm that there was no bathroom in the basement when he sold the house to the people that sold it to me.  Oh my God, I could not believe this!  I then starting researching the plumbing codes and standards that my town follows.  The bottom line is that a legally built bathroom will have a device on it that prevents what happened to me.  After some more hard work and headaches and found a lawyer here in NJ, as well as one in Florida (where the sellers of my home now live), that is going to fight my case. 

This case could cost me $40,000 in legal fees, so even if I win the $50,000 this is pretty much a wash and I cannot refinish my basement and recover the lost property.  The worst case scenario is that I somehow lose and not only am I out the $50,000 in damages, but another $40,000 in legal fees.   Some people have warned me that it may not be worth it and I should just suck it up and move on.  Are you frigging kidding me??  I am not the type of person that can allow my self to be wronged by some lying scum bags and let them get away with it.  I am no doormat.  These people will pay for what they've done.  At the very least they will go through hell and spend their own money to attempt to defend themselves.  I'd rather be out the money than to go through life wondering "what if I only stood up for myself and for what's right".  Folks, it takes a lot of hard work to get what you deserve sometimes, and we all go through challenges at one time or another.  In the end, you will be stronger for it and that's worth a lot.  My takeaway from this mess is that I really believe there is nothing I can't face, and at the end of the day I believe God will ensure that the right outcome prevails.  Wish me luck !!