My wife and I recently bought a house in Florida that had been empty for a year prior to our purchase. We learned that the stick frame house had been built in 1930 and had a 12” crawl space underneath. To our surprise, we discovered that the toilet in one of the bathrooms had been flushing directly into the crawl space for two years.
I am a disabled veteran and had been suffering from severe allergies for the past year. I went to an ENT specialist who informed me that this area is bad for allergies. It appears that the sewage in the crawl space was a major contributor to my health issues.
Now that we have discovered this issue, we are wondering how much we will need to do to remediate it. We are considering contacting the city to see if there were plumbing permits, but we are worried that they could declare the house unlivable.
We are looking for advice on how to handle this issue. We have been told to call a plumber right away, and to avoid contacting a code person unless absolutely necessary. Additionally, we are considering reaching out to Team Rubicon, a disaster relief and home rehabilitation organization for disabled veterans. We think that getting rid of the water in the crawl space would be a good start.
We hope to find a solution to this problem soon, so that we can live in our house without worrying about our health.