Sewage Cleanup Is a Difficult Job (but Someone's Got to Do It)

8/30/2021 (Permalink)

This crawl space was flooded with over 500 gallons of sewage. Call SERVPRO of North Hollywood to clean & restore it "Like it never even happened."

We don't often think about what's going on under our home, and not in a creepy, haunted house movie kind of way. If all is as it should be, your crawl space is out of sight and out of mind. But what if there's a sewage leak under your home? Or worse, what if you need sewage cleanup under a 21,620 square foot multi-family condo? Well, with an unforgettable odor permeating the property, you certainly can't ignore that forgotten area of your home anymore!

Enter SERVPRO of North Hollywood. We answered the call of a property manager with a big, stinky problem at their Los Angeles multi-unit condo. An individual is responsible for about 50 to 70 gallons of wastewater per day. Multiplied by all the occupants of a large, multi-family residential property and this number quickly increases. It should come as no surprise that a sewage pipe leak flooded this crawl space with over 500 gallons of sewage and blackwater!

The Sewage Cleanup Process

First, with any size sewage backup or leak, call the professionals. All sorts of bacteria and other microbes contaminate blackwater. For safety reasons, experienced and highly-trained restoration technicians wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) should clean it up.

Second, sewage cleanup, especially on this scale, requires specialized equipment. In this case, the restoration process included water extraction, moisture detection, air movers, dehumidifiers and SERVPROXIDE, our hospital grade disinfectant. We needed to remove the contaminated water, clean up the affected area, dry the support structure and disinfect everything. Any dampness or moisture left behind provides the perfect conditions for mold growth.

Of course, crawl spaces, by their nature, are difficult to access. And with numerous residents displaced from their homes, this job required immediate attention.

If this sounds like a dirty and difficult job, well, it is. Of course, there are things you can do to decrease the risk of costly water damage repairs. Inspecting toilets, pipes and plumbing fixtures regularly can help prevent a disaster in the future. But sometimes, well, poop happens.

And when it does, SERVPRO of North Hollywood is here to help. We respond immediately, 24/7, with an experienced cleaning and restoration team capable of handling any size sewage damage emergency. In most cases, we can be onsite anywhere in Los Angeles within an hour. So call us at (818) 754-0050 and our damage restoration and cleanup service will make even the dirtiest disaster "Like it never even happened."