I spoke to a city person and they said they are aware of the problem and will do something. Still waiting to see if/how the city fixes this. They did send me a letter about my taxes going up because they have decided my house is worth more now than last year, but I don't think it is, seeing as it has a flooding problem.

All they have to do is put in a double-length grate -- if you look at the picture, where the water runs across the yard, there should be a grate there, no?

HI: The photo, enlarged, indicates a serious problem. Gripe Vine in the West Haven Voice would like to see this corrected. All you have to do is email Gripevine4wh@aol.com I have printed out the complete complaint and photo. Just submit your name,address and phone number, KEPT CONFIDENTIAL IF YOU WISH and I will get to work on it.

Eleanore Turkington
Gripe Vine Columnist

I'm not sure how SeeClickFix works, like if I'm supposed to regularly update this post, so here it goes:

I got a call today (1-6-11) from the city, they said they will talk to the engineer and see how to remedy the situation. I'm very excited at the prospect of this problem being fixed.

I will post any new information as it comes.

Got a note from SeeClickFix asking about this issue, so I wanted to update it. Weather seems to be improving, so I hope to hear from the city soon. I will post any new info as it comes.

Send me your name,address and phone number and I'll be happy to investigate your complaint. Your identity is kept strictly confidential.
Send to: Gripevine4wh@aol.com
or write to Gripe Vine West Haven Voice 666 Savin Avenue, West Haven,Ct 06516

Eleanore Turkington

Just to update, I haven't heard anything from the city yet, so every time it looks like rain I go outside and rake the debris from the street and from up the hill. You should see how nasty the lawn is, got a big dead strip through the middle. If I don't hear from them by the end of the month I will start calling the city again.

This is what it usually does. I know the rain was heavy today, but this is no different than any other time.

So this is what the yard looks like after the rain. This first photo is from the deck, so you can see the trail of junk going all the way across the lawn. I was surprised that there was only that much, I guess it's because I had raked the street up the hill before the rain, so I got rid of a lot of the debris beforehand. Still, it's enough debris that the lawn is just screwed.

Here is the other photo showing the same trail of stuff, but from the street so you can see how it just goes right over the drain and curb.

I know the rain today was unusually heavy, but what's in this photo is no worse than usual. I knew while I was at work that I would come home to this, so before work I made sure the drain was clear of debris and that the street up the hill was pretty clear, too. But it's a little tiny sewer grate for a huge amount of water from 3 directions, so one stick gets washed onto it and then every wet leaf sticks on and it gets covered over immediately and the water creates a 7- or 8-inch deep pond that's higher than the yard and the rushing water just gets a wave going and all the debris that follows just washes over the yard in this huge path across the middle of the lawn. I have a bunch of photos, not very good because of the dark and rain, but I was ticked and wanted to post a photo to see if I can get them to do something. The best part of the whole thing is that today in the mail I got a property tax bill for my car, and I guess I messed up when I mailed in my car taxes and shortchanged them $6, so they tacked on $2 in interest; so I was already agitated and then came home to this. I am going to take a photo tomorrow when it's light and you will see the nasty debris trail across the lawn. It's disgusting -- there are like 20 people with dogs they walk around the neighborhood, and they poop all over the edge of the road, so the nasty water all over the lawn is really a mix of dirt, dog poop, deer poop, lots and lots of animal pee ... acorns and random trash like candy wrappers and stuff. So ... that's all I got, until tomorrow.

Would ya look at that! My comment is gone from yesterday. So that right there goes to show you that someone is reading these complaints. I just hope for Al's sake that this issue gets resolved. Good Luck Al!

Send me your name, address and phone number, kept confidential and I will try to help resolve your issue. Send to Gripe Vine at the West Haven Voice gripevine4wh@aol.co
Eleanore Turkington
Gripe Vine
West Haven Voice

We got a call last week from city public works, they said they would come out this week. A city truck came this morning (5-17-11) to see if the drain was clogged, but it wasn't because I raked the hill Thursday, and then street sweepers came, so there wasn't much debris on the hill for this weekend's rain to pick up.

My wife explained to the city guys -- again -- that the problem is not that the drainpipe is clogged, it's that the water isn't getting to the drainpipe. They said someone from the city was going to be coming by, but that was about 4 hours ago, and no one has come by yet. Then I got an email from SeeClickFix asking if the issue was resolved so I thought I would post here.

So, just an update: If we don't hear from anyone in a couple of days, I am going to call the city again and see what's up with it. The lawn is all nice and full now, except for the huge dead area in the middle where all the road sediment and garbage settled every time the drain failed.

What I really want to do is not pay my taxes, because I should either get this issue fixed or get a lower assessment on my property because it is devalued by this. My taxes are paid directly by my mortgage company so I don't know how I can not pay the city, but I feel like West Haven is just playing games. While the SeeClickFix case is fairly recent, in July it will be two years that we have been trying to get the city to fix this problem.

Send your gripe to Gripevine4wh@aol.com Include your name, address and phone number and I will try to help you.

Eleanore Turkington
Gripe Vine
West Haven Voice

Well, Beth Sabo of PW said she was going to come by Tuesday or Wednesday (today) but she did not, and now I am at work, listening to all the rain, and I know when I get home that the yard will be flooded again. If it's not raining too hard when I get home I will take another picture to show the results of the latest round of negligence.

Well, here's the result of last night's rain. I was letting all the grass grow after I cleaned up from the last couple of overflows, but now it's fouled up again. I cleaned another 3 bucketfuls of debris from the grate, but I did not bother cleaning the yard because it's just going to get screwed up again with the next rain. I called the city but I have to call back later because no one was there.

Here's a shot from the deck, it shows the path of the river of debris that flows across the lawn -- sand, silt, acorns, leaves, road salt, rocks and dog poop. I'm guessing that's why there's a huge swath of dead grass in the middle of the yard.

Here's an example of the mound of junk that covers the drain grate, it takes about 10 minutes of rain to get covered over.

And here's a different angle of the useless drain grate (it's a really small grate). You can see that the mound of crap covering the grate is about the same height as the curb, so the water just runs right over it across my property. I can't tell you how bent out of shape I am that I have to deal with this while paying the city so much money for the property -- how can they charge me for having it, while they're messing it up? Seriously, I think I'm just putting a wall in, and if it floods the street, so be it. Either that or I'll just tear the useless grate right out of the ground and let all the crap go into the pipe, that way when the city sends people out to unclog the not-clogged pipe (a couple of times so far), at least they'll have something to do.

UPDATE: So some workers came by around 7 this morning (6-2-11) and tore out the old grate, jackhammered some pavement and the curb and put in a new grate. I don't think it's complete yet, because it seems like this would be worse than before being basically flush with the land now, and the grate isn't much bigger than the original one, so I'm hoping they're going to put some kind of backsplash or something there. I will post another update if/when something else happens.

UPDATE: Well, they finished building a new curb the other day. Here is what the finished product looks like. I was told by the guy in charge that I need to keep the grate clear of debris (which I do).

UPDATE: And, the city wasted time and money. I knew when I saw the finished work that the city does not listen or understand what the problem is. The new grate is nice and shiny, but it is a small grate and it is still in the wrong place. I would have told them that if anyone had bothered to ask me, but they didn't. Last night's rain flooded the yard again, except this time it is worse than before because they tore up the edge o the yard when they put the new grate and curb in, so now all that is carved out and is just dirt, instead of at least being dirt and grass.

Here is a closer shot of the edge of the yard, which is now worse off than before.

And here is a picture of how much crap and debris went across my entire property last night, after West Haven "fixed" the problem.

So the grate got clogged again during yesterday evening's storm, and the yard got flooded with another round of road debris. I didn't bother with taking pictures of it because it's the same as the rest of the pictures here.

I checked the grate before the rain, and it was clear, and I didn't see much debris up the street.

After the city did some work on the grate/curb and a curb cutout up the road, I was able to figure out that the remaining problem is that the water, when heavy, hits to the left of the grate, and that mixes with water already coming from the left and goes right over the curb and across the property. So, I think the 2 options left are an additional grate to the left of the existing grate and/or a 1- to 2-foot barrier at the edge of the yard, against the curb where the flooding happens. I will look into some cinderblocks or something, I just don't know if that will make the water flood the street or simply flood wherever the barrier ends.

Send me your name, address, phone number (kept strictly confidential) and I will follow up on this issue.
Send to gripevine4wh@aol.com

Eleanore Turkington

UPDATE: The problem remains, coming up on two years.

I did get a small reduction in the assessed value of the land. It won't translate into any real savings tax-wise, but it makes me feel slightly better when I have to clean up all the debris and have a crappy-looking lawn.

For the latest example, the rain this morning, I woke up to a clogged grate and flooded, debris-filled yard even though there wasn't a twig in sight beforehand -- I and my neighbor cleared the street of all debris, all the way up the hill, in anticipation of the rain. Where the debris came from I have no idea, but it's a lot. I didn't take photos because it doesn't look much different than every other picture I posted here -- the water/debris follows the same path every time, which is part of why it's so bad -- the land never heals before it's attacked again.

So at this point, I'm back to trying to figure out a remedy. My plan right now is a low fence around the area, backed by chicken wire. If I make it about 2 feet high, I should be able to catch most of the debris while letting the water through. (If I block the water completely, it still will have to go somewhere, and it likely would just find the edge of the barrier and flood there, which would be too close to the house.)

The only thing that keeps me sane is that this water/drainage issue -- where the water's coming from -- is damaging my neighbor's actual house, as well as his land, so my complaints seem trivial compared to his problem. Hopefully, if I can get the city to address the issue in a meaningful way, it will solve it for both of us.

Just a check-in. It's been a few years and still no resolution, though it looks like city is close to doing some work this spring on the drainage from up the street, which should alleviate the majority of my issues - after a lot of time watching the flooding and paying attention to how the water moves, I think if the city does route the water that comes from across the street into the drain below ground, it would be less volume hitting the grate, so less flooding. I try to keep the grate clear, but since the water from across the street is traveling a great distance over land it picks up all the debris so it clogs quickly; if the water is routed underground, I believe the drain that goes under my yard can handle the volume, as it seems to do OK now once I get the water to actually go into the drain.

Success!

So a couple of weeks ago, the city decided to try to remedy the flooding issue. While the parallel street above the hill still does not have drainage, the city put a drain at the bottom of the hill in my across-the-street neighbor's back yard, and another drain in front of his house across from "my" drain, and tied them both into the pipe in my drain. Then they cut some of the corner off my property in front of my drain to better direct the water that was actually supposed to be going into my drain.

It's only rained a couple of times so far, but it seems like the theory was correct -- catching the water and putting it into the underground pipes directly into my drain, rather than letting it flow across my neighbor's property and the street and somewhat toward my drain, seems to alleviate enough of the overflow where things will work as they should. As long as I keep the drain clear, it seems to work well, and keeping the drain clear is much easier now that there's not extra debris coming from the hill and yard.

The whole job took about 3 or 4 days (with a couple of weeks in between to let the ground settle before repaving) and looks much better. They also replaced the curb at the edge of my neighbor's house and shored up the edge, so any extra rainwater doesn't flow across the street but rather is directed into the new drain in front of his house.

So after all this time, it looks like a solution was actually fairly simple and hopefully it will work well.

As an aside - I want to know what kind of grass seed the guys who did the job used, They had to tear up my neighbor's yard pretty good to put the pipe in connected the drains in the back and front of his house, and some on my yard where they cut the corner off, and it is the most amazing grass seed I've ever seen. It went from dirt to nice, green, lush grass seemingly within days. When I see them again in town I will ask.

Thank you to everyone who too interest and voted to fix this problem. Hopefully this coming winter and spring will prove to be much less destructive than before!