Sewage seeps into Pocatello homes

A foul-smelling weekend for one Pocatello neighborhood, as raw sewage has been backing up into their homes for days.

By Monday morning the problem was fixed, but some in the area said it should have been taken care of much quicker.

Since Saturday, the Howell family said a sewer pipe backed up into their trailer, putting what others flushed down the toilet flowing into their home.

“It put raw sewage from everyone in the park here into my house, onto my floor into my walls,” Shirley Howell said.

Neighbors said the problem affected people up and down the block.

Howell said the flood of filth ruined the floor, soaked into the walls and insulation, and made the trailer completely unlivable.

“You wouldn’t believe it was just like, we were doing every thing we could, even with masks, to hold in what we’d eaten for breakfast. It was horrendous,” Howell said.

Brandy Sweeney and her young son live next door, and fortunately they weren’t hit nearly as hard.

But sewage still seeped from the pipes in the bathroom, and caused the family to head to a friends home to escape the smell.
“It’s really disgusting actually. It’s not safe for a little one either,” Sweeney said.

Plumbers came out and fixed the problem early Monday morning.

The Horners are the landlords for the park, and said they called a plumber as soon as they heard of the problem, but no one could come until Monday.

Rosanne Horner said problems with the sewer pipes, come with the territory in Pocatello mobile home parks.

“The people that live in these parks know that occasionally the lines plug up. These are very, very old parks in the town of Pocatello,” Rosanne said.