My House Was Sabotaged Last Night!

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My house has some water issues. I will be pulling a permit to connect to the storm drain in a few months. So I won't end up with water in my crawlspace when we get heavy rains.

It was warm yesterday and rained in the afternoon. And then heavy rain overnight with pretty warm temperatures.

When I woke up this morning, I noted the heavy rain and that most of the snow had melted in my back yard. But I noticed that I didn't hear my sump pump. Which was strange. I have it in a shallow hole, so it will cycle for a minute, then off for 2 or 3, then back on. I figured I had got lucky and my french drains to another part of the yard were working.

Went out to take the dog out and discovered that SOMEONE HAD MOVED MY SUMP PUMP DISCHARGE overnight! They grabbed the discharge hose, opened the crawlspace access and put the discharge right back into the crawlspace.

Ran back inside and killed the pump and opened up my floor hatch to take a look. The reason I didn't hear the pump running is because it was under 6 inches of water.

Luckily it's enough below grade in the crawl space that it means ONLY an inch or two of water had filled the entire crawlspace. I'm not sure how long the pump was running continuously, but I imagine most of the night.

When I was getting ready for bed last night, the dog and cats were acting like someone was in the back yard. And I thought I heard something outside. Apparently it was someone messing with the sump discharge.

There's a bar by my house. The people tend to wander through everyone's back yard to make it home. My best guess is that someone got sprayed with it and got mad and decided to teach me a lesson.

There's not much point to this. But just frustration. I had put a lot of work into solving 90% of the crawlspace moisture issues to the point that the water would travel through a path I dug into the pump. To try to combat the sinking and structural issues the house has. This isn't good when you're pouring concrete.
 
Sorry you had to deal with idiots.
I would put couple cameras around (for your safety).
And lock the crawl access.

you don't want them "playing" with your Jeep or Subie

I saved my kids godparents basement and sump-pump from a neighbor too zealous in using a mower, who kicked the straight pvc pipe, started collecting water, which froze, then made an ice plug for the pump, which run continuously.
 
Sorry to hear Miller88.

I agree with pandus13 and will add...

Once they know they "got away" with these shenanigans, they will be back and try to take it a step further. This may just have been a feeling-out process for bigger things to come.
 
Bars and people who patronize them are disgusting. It would be sweet if you could somehow set a trap for the next scum bag who trespasses on your property.
 
Originally Posted By: wemay
Sorry to hear Miller88.

I agree with pandus13 and will add...

Once they know they "got away" with these shenanigans, they will be back and try to take it a step further. This may just have been a feeling-out process for bigger things to come.


Or they just have been drunk kids out goofing.
 
Next time let the German Shepherd out to take care of business.
smile.gif
 
My wife and I frequent several local bars. We're also hard-working mature adults with what I would describe as an upper-middle class household income, own our home, friendly and helpful with the neighbors, and pay our taxes.

Several of these bars also sponsor our local children's baseball and football teams, funds which ultimately come from customers like us who patronize these establishments. Are these business disgusting?

And because we choose to spend some of our free time conversing with friends over a couple drinks at the bar, we're disgusting too?



Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Bars and people who patronize them are disgusting. It would be sweet if you could somehow set a trap for the next scum bag who trespasses on your property.
 
It's really the quietest bar I've ever seen. Never hear anything past 9. I'm not sure why anyone would do this other than they were startled by getting hit with some water. For the most part, it's a good neighborhood.


Originally Posted By: cjcride
Motion sensor security lights and possibly cameras.


I have motion security lights - but I ended up killing power to the garage because they kept turning on and off randomly. Probably because someone was walking in the back yard.

Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
Next time let the German Shepherd out to take care of business.
smile.gif



She might paw and nose bump them to death. She's not territorial so she would let anyone in. Now, if I were to let my cat at them ....

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Are land mines an option?


If you mean the ones left by the dog, then yes
smile.gif
That may have been what caused the whole thing
 
Originally Posted By: W3DRK
My wife and I frequent several local bars. We're also hard-working mature adults with what I would describe as an upper-middle class household income, own our home, friendly and helpful with the neighbors, and pay our taxes.

Several of these bars also sponsor our local children's baseball and football teams, funds which ultimately come from customers like us who patronize these establishments. Are these business disgusting?

And because we choose to spend some of our free time conversing with friends over a couple drinks at the bar, we're disgusting too?



Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Bars and people who patronize them are disgusting. It would be sweet if you could somehow set a trap for the next scum bag who trespasses on your property.


Well,he didn't say members from the neighborhood church read scripture and then vandalized his home. It was some drunk jerk off from the neighborhood "bar" who thinks it's cool to get sauced and go vandalize someone's home.
 
I'm so sorry you had your problems but in your case, if the dog is not up to the job then motion detectors with really bright lights is a good option. These creeps that do stuff like that are cowards when it comes to being exposed.

Really bright lights that blind people at night are worth researching. It appears that you need to do a little planning and make a project out of securing your home against useless drunks.
 
Would someone have to be in your yard to be sprayed by the discharge or could they have been near your property and still been sprayed? Why is the discharge spraying, anyway?
 
A few years ago a guy I worked with had one of the neighbor kids stick his garden hose in the dryer exhaust and turn it on.
 
Basic questions:

Where did the sump hose discharge to? Do your neighbors also have drainage issues that in solving your problem made theirs worse? (Very common problem - and the exact reason many places don't allow you to discharge sump pumps right on a property line).

And when you say spray, how is it spraying? I dealt with one neighborhood dispute that had one neighbor have his sump pump discharge through a sprinkler that shot in the neighbors yard... A conversation with the sheriff ended that game...

After that, you need to make the end of your sump line difficult to move to avoid tampering. Where I live, we have drain tile under the curb line and can pay a connection charge to discharge our sump pump to it. All underground.
 
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