SOAKED IN THE CITY
Homeowner fighting with Trenton to help get home repaired after water main flooding >>
TRENTON » Aime Fleming hasn’t awoken from a city caused “nightmare” since May 6, when a water pipe burst in her capital city neighborhood, flooding her home and the surrounding area.
Displaced and distraught over the loss of their home, her family has been “lowballed” in settlement negotiations with the city, hit with stiff abandoned property sanctions and faced what has seemed like miles of bureaucratic red tape in the ensuing months since flooding from the break of a two-foot water main sent gushing, waste high tides into the streets and created a sinkhole.
Desperate for help, Fleming reached out to the city mayor and local political leaders but hasn’t heard back from any of them. She said she’s at wits end over the monthslong debacle, her home still a boardedup mess, and doesn’t see an end in sight.
Unsatisfied with the city’s response and a onetime $15,000 settlement offer, Fleming is contemplating legal action. Her insurance company refused to pay for the damage, contending the city was at fault for the water seepage.
“I’m not signing nothing,” Fleming told The Trentonian. “They haven’t done nothing. They just threw boards over where the front yard is, where it caved in at. That’s all they did. The house looks as bad as it did May 6. The only thing is it dried up.”
The basement was filled with more than six feet of water.
“If I would have went down there, I would have drowned,” the 41-year-old, 5-foot Fleming said.
After presenting the city with an insurance denial letter, she has been in touch with numerous officials over the last four months, including on a conference call with business administrator Terry McEwen.
Mayor spokesman Michael Walker said in a statement the city has been “fair and reasonable” to Fleming, footing $17,000 in the family’s hotel bills for the last three months.
The city plans to spend up to an additional $14,000 on mold remediation, Walker said. Later calling The Trentonian back to revise his statement, Walker claimed the mold remediation could cost the city more than the $14,000 figure he gave. He said he didn’t know anything about a onetime $15,000 settlement or if that included costs of the mold remediation.
Walker didn’t address the reasons behind the delays in the city taking action in Fleming’s case.
“We have agreed to do mold remediation in the basement and on the first floor of Ms. Fleming’s home,” he said. “In addition, we have agreed to replace water-damaged sheetrock. A contractor is scheduled to begin the work in a few days. As to her personal belongings, our claims adjuster continues to negotiate with the homeowner about a settlement.”
McEwen, the business administrator, said the city “stepped up” when Fleming’s insurance denied her claim. He placed some of the blame in the delays on the homeowners.
“I think she disconnected herself from process,” he told The Trentonian. “She should be assisting us in collaborative effort. We can’t do it by ourselves. The city takes full responsibility for [the flood].”
Cheapskates
Angered by the lowball settlement offer and the delays, Fleming noted city officials get to “go home every night. We can’t. I would like to sit on my porch like I used to.”
The family’s life changed last summer, when basements of homes on the 100 block of Garfield Avenue were flooded after a water main broke. City workers and officials from PSE&G worked to remediate the problem.
Fleming’s 113 Garfield Avenue home, where she lived with her husband, twin 8-year-olds and 19-year-old son, was most affected. She said none of her neighbors were forced to move out.
The Flemings, however, were displaced after the city declared their home uninhabitable – a neon green city Department of Inspections’ “occupancy prohibited” sign affixed to the front door.
The family has been forced to live in a hotel, while Fleming, a state Department of Transportation worker, has unsuccessfully worked with the city, which hired Galloway-based Claims Resolution Corporation, to get her home refurbished and the contents of it restored.
The flood not only forced the family out of their home, but it also required her 19-year-old son to live with Fleming’s sister because there’s only so much space at their hotel, Sonesta Suites in Monmouth Junction.
Separated from each other, the family is still paying the monthly $887 mortgage payment to not live under the same roof in Trenton. They’ve seen an uptick in other bills, like groceries, since they no longer have the storage space to buy in bulk.
“We’re spending more outside the house than we were inside the home,” Fleming said.
All this could have been avoided, Fleming said; about a year before the flood she said she saw crews from Trenton Water Works working in the area where the pipe burst.
“They put a Band-Aid on that crap,” Fleming said.
The city has also tried to bandage the family’s emotional and financial wounds, Fleming said.
Only just this week did the city send out a mold remediation company to assess the damage. Mold had spread to the first floor of the home, Fleming said, damaging all her furniture, while raccoons, squirrels and possums have taken up residence in the basement.
“They let my house sit all summer long,” she said.
Fleming said the city’s $15,000 settlement doesn’t come close to covering more than $68,000 in costs a local construction company estimated it would take to restore the home.
She lost an additional $12,000 in furniture and household items, pushing the total costs of the flood to more than $80,000.
“I’m not sure where’s she deriving that number,” McEwen said. “I don’t think that number takes into account” the costs of the hotel accom-
modations, mold remediation and sheetrock replacement.
In addition, the flood gutted a paid-off 2012 Malibu belonging to Fleming’s husband and damaged the inside of Fleming’s truck.
The city reimbursed her the $1,000 deductible for the cars, she said, and has footed the family’s hotel bill, though that could change later this month.
Her husband’s vehicle was beyond repair, so he had to get a new one and is making payments, an added cost the family didn’t incur before the flood.
Bunch of ‘BS’
When she visited City Hall this week, Fleming was told by mayoral aide Andrew Bobbitt that the $15,000 settlement was fair because her home wasn’t worth more
than $60,000.
Bobbitt, who did not return a phone call from The Trentonian, was actually generous in his assessment. Most recent property records show an assessed value at $40,000, far below the $89,000 the family paid for the home in 2005. They poured another $28,000 into upgrades, including a finished basement and new roof.
Making matters worse, Fleming said, the city has refused to disburse any funds until she and her family move out of the hotel and back into their home, which isn’t possible because it’s still destroyed.
Complaining about a recent hike that amounted to more than $400 a year in property taxes, Fleming disputed Bobbitt’s and the city’s assessed value. She spoke to a realtor who believed the property is worth more than $100,000.
“That’s what we trying to figure out,” Fleming said about the numbers. “Just like I don’t know where he came up with $15,000. Who the hell gave it to you? If you don’t have any knowledge about it, don’t just throw numbers out there.”
Contending she did everything officials asked her to do by getting estimates and even hiring an adjuster, Fleming said the experience has made her question whether she wants to remain in Trenton.
That was cemented when she got a letter from the city informing the family it was being penalized $1,250 for not giving notice of a vacant property.
The letter, sent by city real estate manager Daniel Roach
and obtained by The Trentonian, threatened additional fees and further court action if Fleming didn’t address the issue by Sept. 11.
“Please be further advised that each day the violation persists counts as a separate and distinct offense, which means the $1,000 penalty shall continue to accrue daily until such time as the violation is remedied,” according to the letter.
Infuriated, Fleming reached out to Diana Rogers, director of the Department of Housing and Economic Development. Rogers did not respond to a message left for her at her office.
“I’m working on a master’s degree. I can comprehend real well,” Fleming said. “I don’t know who they think they talkin’ to. If I have to go to court, so be it.”
Fleming has lost faith in the Jackson administration, unable to get in contact with Mayor Eric Jackson since the day of the flood, when he visited
the neighborhood. Jackson did not respond to a request for comment.
She said she sent the mayor Facebook messages but didn’t hear back from him, and she has also reached out to the office of Sen. Shirley Turner.
“The whole administration has failed me,” she said. “They’re still giving me the runaround and I’m sick of it. … I’m tired of being BSed. My family and friends can’t come up and visit us. I can’t have my Sunday meal for my family. All my memories from my son’s elementary school days – his certificates – they’re gone. They can’t replace none of that.”