Couple Fed Up With Mystery Water Flooding Their NJ Home
SUMMIT, N.J. (CBSNewYork) - A New Jersey couple is fed up going with the flow of a mystery water inside their home, for years, and no one seems to be able to help.
Gerard and Penelope Garcia say they feel like prisoners in their own home because of water that just keeps flowing into their basement from an unknown source, reports CBS2's Meg Baker.
"We are so frustrated and looking for help," said Penelope.
They have two sump pumps, a back-up pump, and a generator. They can't afford to lose power or they would be knee deep in a flood.
The Garcias estimate that every 50 seconds, two and a half gallons of water flows out of their basement.
"Four and half months, we had about half a million gallons go into sump pump," said Gerard. "That's a lot of water."
The retirees moved into their home on Edison Drive in Summit in 2012. Their first episode happened two years later. They point to the source as broken pipes up the hill from their house at a condo development. Once the pipes were fixed, they had no water.
"This sump pump was dry for four years," he said in his basement.
That was until last year when the sump pump started running non-stop.
New Jersey American Water says it performed multiple leak detection surveys and determined there are no leaks from the provider's pipes.
The Garcias say they have tried reaching out to the condo association but had no luck.
They believe the previous leaks created an underground channel that leads to their home and now ground water, drainage water and other run off finds that path of least resistance.
The couple is currently working with several waterproofing companies to find a solution.
"It's going to affect our neighbors because if we block it from our house, then what's now not going to neighbors will be," said Penelope.
Summit says the water is not coming from storm sewer drains. City workers will continue tests over the next several weeks.
We've reached out to the condo association and have not yet heard back.
