I complained, and I complained a lot.
My complaining saved me thousands of dollars.
Today I want to share my story of complaining and how it paid off for me, but first let me give a short background to the situation.
But before I say anything let me say I only suggest complaining to companies – or in my case the local government – when you legitimately think there is an action that they should take.
Lying or complaining unnecessarily isn’t something I support or recommend.
Our first Summer in our home (last Summer) was also the Summer where I experienced the biggest storm I’ve ever seen in my life. It created tremendous damage in our neighborhood and across the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Unfortunately for us, our city’s storm drainage system failed. Also unfortunately for us, one of the sub-drains that feeds into the city’s main drainage system sits between our yard and our neighbor’s yard. Even more unfortunate is that we both have walk-out basements (one of the reasons we bought the home we did – lots of usable basement space – and once the water started to back up it created a pond in our backyards.
Thankfully we do have a sump pump, but unfortunately it was on the opposite side of our basement. All we could do is try to get things out of the way as a foot of water stood outside our door and drained into our house and back to the pump.
Thankfully we were home at the time and were able to clean up our basement quickly which greatly minimized the damage to the house and our belongings. I know others who weren’t so lucky and came home from a weekend out of town to two feet of water in their basement.
We weren’t alone, though, as 20+ sub-drains failed causing flooding in many areas of the city. I knew that it would be an uphill battle to get the city to take action, but if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s being persistent for a business/organization/government to take action.
The Actions I took
I took many actions in response to the flooding. First, I talked to the city engineer who seemed like she was definitely going to right the wrong. Unfortunately for me I found out in the Fall that she moved on and they were in the process of hiring a new city engineer. From December through May I took the following actions:
- Contacted every member of the City Council, including the mayor, asking them to make repairing our drain a high priority
- That led to talking to the new engineer and city planner, where they told me they had hired a consulting company to evaluate the drainage system
- Various follow-up emails
- An email from the engineer saying in response to the report they would install a back-flow preventor, survey our yard for elevation differences, and that grading in our yard and possibly our neighbor’s yard would be done to create a sort of “bath tub” of engineered soils that would soak up the water in case of future failures of the drainage system
So I was pretty happy with this, until I found out a week ago that the plan for grading was no longer on the table and that they would only install the back-flow preventor.
If you have ever had to watch helplessly as your backyard turns into a pond (and I forgot to mention, our basement nearly flooded once before the actual flooding) trust me, you would want everything done possible to avoid flooding occurring again. So I was not happy with this.
More Complaining and the Money Saved
I really only had two options to make sure that my basement wouldn’t flood again. The option was to pay a lot of money to have a permanent outdoor sump pump set up to pump water from my backyard to my front yard. The next option was to get the city to put grading back into their plan.
So what did I do? I contacted the entire city council, the city planner, and the engineer again and made it clear grading should be back on the table. I won’t rehash the whole email. The important thing is: it worked. Grading was back in the plan!
So my savings from complaining (and being persistent in that complaining) was:
- $1,000+ from not having to have an outdoor sump pump installed.
- $1,000 to ? from avoiding having to file a claim when our basement (hypothetically) floods again. Our deductible is $1,000 and we have something like $10,000 on the structure and $25,000 for personal belongings (that may be flipped?) if water gets into our basement during a storm. Hopefully we never have to pay that deductible, and can you imagine if we spent a ton of money renovating our basement and have to gut the place? Who knows how much we saved.
In conclusion, complaining saved me thousands of dollars. If you’re persistent enough and keep good records, you can definitely get a business – or in our case, the city – to take action to right a wrong.
How long will you complain/persist on an issue with a company or government until you give up? How much time are you willing to commit to following up with a complaint until you decide to drop it?
____________
Photo by Mindaugus Danys
Check out some of our favorite personal finance resources:
Are you getting the best credit card rewards? Check out the top cash back credit card offers (updated daily)
Make extra money: 15 ways to make money from your computer
Get the First Chapter Free!
Join our online community and get the first chapter of the book Student Loan Solution absolutely FREE!
Good for you, DC! I’m so glad that you didn’t just let it go and remained persistent in your request. It sounds like the local government absolutely had an obligation to fix the problem properly.
Great job. Government bureaucracy can be maddening at times, but they are supposed to be there to serve the citizens so I say complain away!
Wow, I hear you on this one. Water in a basement is such a drag. I’m having an issue right now where we have water coming in when it downpours. We identified the problem and have to do some cement work outside. It’s not a big job but still it’s a pain.
It can be stressful but if you don’t complain they will do nothing. Are you obligated to have flood insurance on your house because of this issue?
It’s great that you were finally able to get through to them. It’s ridiculous how long it takes cities to move on things. So much red tape. I think if thousands of dollars are on the line, I’d be complaining too!
Good for you DC! Not only is the money savings nice, but you actually got them to get something done…albeit something it sounds like they should’ve done anyway. I’ve never had to go this far but have had a few instances where I had to go fairly high up on the food chain with a company to get something rectified. It doesn’t always work, but it is nice to get someone who has the power to get something done and recognizes it needs to be fixed.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil right? It is definitely worth it to be persistent and complain when you can save thousands of dollars. Sometimes I’ll continue to be persistent for lesser amounts just for the principal of it.
Awesome! I think more people should ash for what they want for sure!
Way to be persistent. Like the saying goes, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. You have to take the initiative.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil. I’m usually lazy when it comes to complaining about things to the government but I live in a neighborhood with a lot of people with free time. Our roads are atrocious after rainy season, except where I live thanks to the complainers
If I’m not happy I will complain and expect something to be done about it. Especially if I’m paying the company money.
I would have complained too! For real. I’m glad it worked out in your favor.
Wow! Good for you, DC, for being so persistent. I probably would have given up. I don’t like confrontation. Hubster, on the other hand, likes to complain and emails our politicians all the time.
I can totally relate to the basement flooding story. We had two floods in less than 5 years. The first time was when our hot water tank burst and the second was due to a freak storm and flash flood for which our sump pump couldn’t keep up. That one was a mess and took almost a year to get the basement work redone. It really left a bad taste in our mouth because my husband had done most of the work himself when we finished the basement initially, so when it all got totally ruined, it was really disheartening.
Thank you for sharing, DC! I am right there with you in terms of complaining when it’s deserved. Recently, I had a huge complaint with my student loan manager and I emailed corporate and they actually called me to discuss. It’s always worth it when it comes to bigger things, but I try to pick my battles.
TheWriteBudget Yep and the engineer in our city is great – met her on Monday. They have a really solid plan and I’m excited for the work to be done – not just for me, but for the next owner!
thebrokeprof I definitely found out who the representatives are who care the most, as well as the ones who are too apathetic to even write back. It’s good information to know!
Raquel@Practical Cents It’s technically not “flooding” because a flood is defined differently. I kind of understand the difference but not well enough to describe haha. I do have $10k property and $25k personal coverage (with 1k deductible) for water damage in our home.
JourneytoSaving Definitely! The thing is, our peace of mind is on the line too. We will rest better knowing that the yard is graded properly. I’m glad they are going to do the work.
BudgetBlonde I think it makes sense to push the issue. If I was being unreasonable it would become obvious pretty quickly when I get nowhere.
Charles@gettingarichlife Freerider! Haha : P
theFinancegirl You HAVE to pick your battles, in my opinion. It takes too much time, effort and energy to fight every battle. I’m glad that the student loan company called you!
Insurance claim: you saved LOTS more money than a grand there, DC. From what I’m told from various insurance agencies, no type of flooding is generally covered unless you have flood insurance AND the flood comes directly from a river or lake. Not sure if this is true, but it’s an answer I’m getting all over as I research this stuff. You may have had to pay to repair/replace everything out of your own pocket. Great work, my friend!
Laurie TheFrugalFarmer We’ve been emailing about this but I will still leave a quick reply in case others see your comment. While we do NOT have flood insurance, we DO have coverage if water gets in our basement from a storm. It’s an odd insurance things, as you would think it would be one in the same. Our neighborhood wasn’t technically “flooded” nor are we in an area that is designated as at-risk for floods. I’m not even sure we can buy flood insurance? But the coverage DOES cover the sort of damage we saw from the storm, and I confirmed this because I talked to my insurance agent for a half hour after hour basement flooded. The insurance agent had been working with a number of others who would be filing claims. This coverage is not standard, either, you need to have it added on to your coverage.
Great stuff DC, most people would have given up but your persistence provided some good ROI on your time :)..
Good to hear someone sticking it to the man :)
When my wife and I purchased our first home, we had to buy flood insurance because the home was in a flood zone. BUT, we were told that the city was in the process of pushing through new maps due to a huge flood prevention project in Rochester which would take us OUT of the flood zone, allowing us to cancel our flood insurance and get our money back. I called and wrote emails, and stopped by offices to push the new maps to be approved. I don’t know if my nagging actually did any good, but the maps did eventually get pushed through that same summer.
If your community is participating in the National Flood Insurance Program, you can buy flood insurance. I am a Certified Floodplain Manager and recommend purchasing flood insurance for everyone who owns a basement. Especially if your property is located outside of the Special Flood Hazard Area (aka floodplain) as you can get very cheap policies.
No offense, but do you have to deal with hundreds or thousands of sometimes irate and uninformed “customers” at your job? That is what it’s like working for local governments in planning/zoning/floodplain departments. Never mind the fact that most haven’t had a raise in several years and are doing 3-4 people’s jobs since governments mostly aren’t hiring new staff. But we’re supposed to do it with a smile and be glad we get a paycheck, while rarely receiving a thank you from the citizens we help.
I’ve recently changed jobs so I don’t have to deal with that BS anymore, but it was extremely stressful to be helping 30-40 people per day, write staff reports, present to elected and appointed officials, and write grants for the cheapskate millionaires who wouldn’t even pay for property protection measures themselves.
All that being said, it is the job of the local drainage district or municipal public works department to maintain their drainage system. Channel debris removal and/or problem site maintenance are creditable activities in FEMA’s Community Rating System that can help lower flood insurance premiums for floodplain residents in the community.
Jover2 We are not able to purchase flood insurance where we live. We are at no risk of flooding. The only reason we had issues was because of neglected city infrastructure. I was not directing my anger at the non-responsiveness of the workers, but the elected officials.
Jover2 I should also say I did not and will not vote for officials who did not respond. Thankfully the one who did help me through the process won overwhelmingly this Fall!
There is no such thing as “no risk of flooding”. And if your community is in the NFIP, you can buy flood insurance. If your property is located outside of the mapped floodplain, you can qualify for a preferred risk rate. Look into it.
Jover2 I should have said from the beginning, I’m not worried about flooding. The infrastructure has been upgraded due to my complaining and the problem has been solved.