Our sewer line backed up, and now the basement floor is covered in sewage. It’s a concrete floor, there’s maybe ten or twenty square feet of floor with solid or semi-liquid sewage (including remains of toilet paper) sitting on it. Some of the liquid has gone down the sump.
I want to remove as much of the solid material as I can before hosing what’s left down the drain. I’m going to the hardware store to get some tools and supplies. I’m thinking of using a good deep dust pan and broom, and scooping the stuff into a plastic bag.
If you have any other suggestions, let me have them ASAP. Thanks.
(Yes, I could pay someone else to do this, and I’m actually waiting for a bid from ServPro. But our insurance policy has a $500 deductible, and I think I can clean this up myself in an hour or two, max, and my labor’s a lot less than that.)
My suggestion (and you mentioned it) would be to call in a restoration place. The type of people the specifically deal with fires/floods/sewage backup. All you can really do is mop it up. They’ll come in with their industrial dehumidifiers to dry the place out, clean it up, decontaminate it including everything that was in the sewerage that you aren’t throwing out (that means cleaning the legs of the workbench, the base of the floor lamps you have in storage, the bottom of the walls, everything). Also, if need be, they’ll check behind the drywall for moisture and cut the drywall out to let the area behind it dry out if it’s wet. They’ll also take care of throwing out the stuff you are throwing out.
It can get expensive, but so is mold and ecoli in your basement. Many places can also take are of rebuilding what was destroyed, but it’s probably cheaper to take care of that part yourself.
I would think in terms of some leak proof containers that you would dispose of when finished. That could be 5 gallon pails with lids, plastic storage boxes, or garbage cans with lids. The pails would have better lids. The garbage can even with wheels might be too heavy to get up the stairs depending on fullness. (30 gallons worth would weigh 240# or so.) I agree with picking up what you can first before hosing. A respirator would make the job more friendly. Wear clothes that will be disposed of after.
Also, buy a floor brush with a handle. Dump soap and water and scrub and rinse. Finish with bleach. The well fitting respirator is mandatory for that phase. I’d do it for $500.
Call a restoration place. Outside of that, go to a place that sells professional products. Buy a bottle of this chemical (name escapes me) that you can dilute and it’s used for treatment of black water. The enzymes actually soak into the wood and everything and get rid of it…
It’s fantastic stuff. Any drywall or insulation will need to be cut away and any wood sprayed liberally with this stuff. It’s not cheap (50.00 a gallon) but it works awesome!
Plastic bags? There are probably local regulations on the disposal of human excrement. If your sewer is working again, I’d recommend putting it down the sewer line because that’s both legal and free. If you do that, it might be easier to use a shovel and large plastic bucket.
You must. Twenty square feet is a rectangle 4x5 feet. Maybe a bit bigger than the really big flat-screen TVs. Doesn’t seem impossible to clean up on his own.
I don’t know if this is an option and it will probably be considered a revolting idea by most, but if you have a dehumidifier, you could probably dry out the whole area in a couple days and pick up the now finely powdered but dry “debris” with a HEPA filtered bag vacuum cleaner. After that, going over it with a mop and 55 gallon drum of bleach might be less challenging.
It’s not going to dry into dust (and if it did, you’d have shit-dust flying around the basement). It’ll form a sort of cake, just like dried mud, which in fact might be easier to clean up, though I doubt that even with an amazing dehumidifier it would dry very much in two days. Meanwhile you have mold and other nasty stuff growing.
Thanks for the ideas, folks. When I posted, I thought I might wait till tomorrow to do the job, but then I Googled and found a bunch of sites with recommendations, similar to yours, and decided to get it done today.
I did pretty much what I said in the OP, and although I mis-stated the area involved – it was more like 100 square feet – once I had all my tools gathered, it only took about two hours. I still have to do some final touches (bleach treatment, following the disinfectant I used today) and dispose of the bagged waste, but all in all, it wasn’t was bad as it might have been. Definitely worth saving $450 ($500 less about $50 in tools and supplies).
I was going to ask about how to dispose of the waste. I read elsewhere that, in some jurisdictions at least, the only place you can legally dispose of sewage is in a sanitary sewer (e.g. can’t put it out with the trash or dump it in the storm drain). This was a problem, until after reading some of your replies it occurred to me that I can do it fairly easily and neatly.
The source of the sewage in the first place was a plugged drain that was once used for a toilet in the basement. When the blockage formed, the plug popped open and pushed everything out onto the floor. All I have to do is open it again, and dump the shit down there. If I’m careful cutting open the bags, it shouldn’t be much of a hassle.
If anyone else has any better ideas, please feel free to suggest them.
One final plumbing question: the plug in this drain hole is a metal cap with a rubber seal that tightens when you screw down the wingnut on top. Could I get a more permanent cap that wouldn’t pop out so easily? Or is this like a safety valve: a better option in case of a blockage like this, which might otherwise end up dumping sewage all over the floors of the second-floor bathrooms?