A flood of problems hit a local man after a water line ruptured causing flooding in his house. He's spent seven months trying to find out who's responsible as his house remains filled with water damage. Now he's turned to us for help.
In May of 2015, a work crew hit a waterline in Garfield Heights flooding 88-year-old Raymond Toth’s home.
"I would say up to here," Toth said while showing us his basement. There’s still damage to the floor and the walls. "I got mold up against the side over there," he told us pointing across a rec room. He's had to replace major appliances, too, but the flooding got so dangerous he faced something that is not replaceable. "I was pulling plugs out of the wall which was dumb...I could have been electrocuted. I got one little shock," explained Toth.
He also told us a Cuyahoga County crew came to repair the road and line damage. It also got the water out, but he's now out hundreds of dollars. He and his daughter said they have been trying to get answers from Garfield Heights and the City of Cleveland only to be told months later from Cleveland that the contractor came through Cuyahoga County Engineers.
"Nobody seemed to care one bit about a person and the things that they have to go through," said Toth.
Cuyahoga County told us it has no record of a county crew at that location on that date in May. The county said it's been working with Toth’s situation since day one and since November the case has been with its law department.
"It's been hard....I've....," Toth sighed, taking a moment to think. This issue is troubling because it's already been a tough time recently for the World War II vet. "The fact that I'm alone now… I lost my wife a little over a year ago now. She had Alzheimer's and Dementia."
The county says it will continue to work with Toth on this confusing case. We’ve reached out to the City of Cleveland asking what's going on and why it's taking so long to clear this issue.
