Help! Flood left mud under my MH---how do I get it out???

[Linda L]

Hi!
I'm new here and quite frankly I'm at my wits end. Our neighbor across a State Highway has a creek on his property. Since the State didn't maintain a culvert that drains it and it blocked, it decided the best alternate route was down our driveway and under our MH., where it dumped into Puget Sound (Washington State). It was a literal river for almost a week.

Fortunately, so far, we've not found any major damage, just lots of mud. The water didn't rise high enough to get inside our home. When the water was finally re-routed and the water drained we were left with 4"-8" of mud in the yard. Also fortunately we are in an area where the mud was relatively "clean" and the water was moving quickly enough we aren't concerned about bacterial contamination.

But we still have a problem. All the mud that was in the yard is also UNDER the mobile home. I've searched everywhere and can't find a method to remove it, short of crawling under there and taking it out a small bucket at a time. The crawl space under there is not that high, probably fairly typical.

Has anyone ever had this problem or know how to get the mud out? Would it be OK to leave it there? The biggest problem is it is now freezing and impossible to dig it out. When it thaws, we're back to all that moisture under there. I am concerned about mold or damage the moisture could cause. We won't have warm weather until May or June---in fact the rainy season is just starting! And even if it dries out the mud is very silty and fine. I imagine we'll have fine dust on everything forever. I feel SO helpless!

FYI, this is our summer home, so the heat is usually turned down (not off) during the winter. We inherited it a few years ago and are just learning about MH's. First lesson---older MH's don't have shutoff valves on the toilets! Don't ask!

Oh, this is a 24 X 56, 1972 Kingswood double wide.

Help

Linda L

[Mark]

Hi,

If the mud is froze, there's not much you can do til it thaws. If you're worried about moisture, then take off some skirting or put in some extra vents.

This spring once the mud thaws, then the best way to remove it is to take off sections of skirting and rake or shovel it out.

However you tackle the job, it won't be easy.

Mark

[Brenda (OH)]

Linda,

I wonder if the local fire department would be willing to bring out a truck, and attach to a fire hydrant and wash the mud out from under the trailer? Especially if it is a volunteer department?

Brenda (OH)

[Greg]

Linda, Hi & welcome. There really is not a lot you can do this time of year other than try to dry it out as much as possible like Mark said.
Once the weather warms up, if you have to remove the mud /dirt check some og the rental houses in your area We rent a 21' convayer that would slide under your home. All you would need to do is just shovel on to the belt and let the machine do the work of moving it.
As long as you are digging maybe you should clear the ditch too. Greg

[Linda L]

Thanks for all your suggestions, as you can imagine this is very stressful!

I see flooding on the news all the time, but they usually just address the "human" issues and like to show pictures of damage. I surfed the Internet last night for 3 hours and found nothing! This mud is like nothing I have ever seen or worked with before, and I grew up on a farm. In the yard, I figured I could just pressure wash it off, a layer at a time. It turns to a slurry like concrete and won't move. Let it dry a bit and tried a rake. Won't move it either. Just pulls lines through it. The only way we were able to finally get it out of the yard was to wait for it to somewhat solidify and shovel it into a wheelbarrow. I would guess we had over 100 large, commercial size wheelbarrows full. This mud/silt is weird stuff.

I did contact an attorney, we are considering suing the State. This happened before, though not as bad in 1996. The State came out and opened the culvert then and promised to be back to do a permanent repair. Not only have they not been back, but they stopped maintaining the ditch. We now have snow piling up in the hills above us and I have this sick feeling we will be doing the same thing all over in a few months. The attorney said it would be very expensive and take a long time. And what would the payoff be? As fr as we can tell the MH is still secure on the foundation, our septic and well are working, so the only real damage was the mud that WE removed.

The only thing I can think of is to remove the skirting (when it warms up a bit), and try to shovel it out a bit at a time, but that's 12 feet to the outside. The conveyor idea might work if there is room under there to put it. It is sitting on concrete cinder blocks. Just looking under there I don't see a lot of clearance. I'm also concerned about rust, since the water basically got trapped under there (skirt held it in) until pressure pushed it out.

Sorry to be so chatty---been a long few weeks, and hubby and I are in our 60's. Lot of work and hubby is one of those guys who will only do it himself.

Oh, as far as the Fire Dept. I'm guessing they would come out to help, but I would be afraid to put any more water under there or use high pressure for fear of pushing the MH off the blocks. This whole mess feels like one roadblock after another.

Thanks again, if anyone thinks of anything else I am open to try anything!

Linda

[Greg]

Our conveyor is about a foot high, I think that it would fit under most of the homes in our area. Just a thought. Greg

[Linda L]

Thanks Greg, I'm going to have my husband check the rental places and see what's available. Right now he is pulling a sheet of plywood under there, piling the mud on it, then pulling it out. Very tedious and back-breaking to say the least!

Thanks again! And thanks to everyone here for the help, it's unbelievable how this kind of thing can affect everything in your life. We are emotional wrecks. I expect at any minute to have the whole place collapse. We just noticed the joint between the two halves is separating. We had just pulled the carpet out and had primed the floor to put in new laminate floors before this happened. We noticed this morning the crack between the 2 halves has spread and the Spackle my husband had filled the seam with is cracking. The primer is also popping loose at the seam and the pressed-board under it feels damp. We may have a bigger problem than we realized.

I applied to FEMA---what a joke! They referred us to Small Business for a loan. We had decided it wasn't worth the headaches, but after this morning I'm going to go ahead and contact them to see what is available. At least I hope I can get an inspection done so we know if there is more damage. It makes me really nervous that my husband is crawling around under there.

Much Appreciation!

Linda

[Harry]

Hi

I have some FEMA experience from Hurricane Andrew.

The low interest loan is administered by the Small Business Administration. If you fail to repay the loan it is turned over to the IRS for collection.

If you have insurance you don't get the loan. If the home is not your primary residence you may not get the loan.

Please let us know how you do.

Good Luck

Harry

[Linda L]

I've tried to navigate through the FEMA/Small Business paper work and it is overwhelming. I am disabled due to a brain injury and it just confuses me. The main reason we decided it wasn't initially worth it. My husband has never done any of the "administrative" stuff and is not good dealing with bureaucracies---it was always my job, and I did it quite well. Now...well I try!

The second residence thing is the major block we may have. I am going to try to prove that this is MY Primary residence. I spend more than half my time here, (even more since my injury, I find it hard to be in large crowds or large cities) I am registered to vote here, my car is registered here, and my name is the only name on the insurance. Don't know if it will fly, but it is the truth.

Our laws are so screwed up. We supposedly have equality, but when it comes to marriage, the rules on the book swing both ways. As far as I see it, they have no reason to deny me just because I am married and my husband lives in a separate residence. I'm sure their "out" will be that both names are on the home my husband claims.

Guess all I can do is try. Sad thing is, we inherited this beautiful property. Used to be "blue collar, generational homes and surprisingly affordable. Now land is tight, Bill Gates built a place a couple miles from us, and all the Microsoft generation, high income people are buying everyone out at highly inflated prices. In 1998 when we inherited we were valued at $175K. The two houses next door sold 2 years ago for $360K! Now we are struggling just to pay the taxes on the inflated value of our place! Really sad, the generational homes are being lost.

I'm going to call on Monday and start the ball rolling. All they can do is turn us down, and at least we'll know where we stand. I hope we can at least get a free inspection from it.

Thanks again, wish me luck!

Linda

[Greg]

Linda, Luck MAY be on your side. If a "Big wig" like Bill Gates is in the picture, the wheels may move a little faster.
I would contact your Insurance company also, I don't want to sound an alarm, but the cracks at the Marriage line bother me. in the mean time take lots of pictures, document everything, and keep tabs of your costs. Greg

[Linda L]

LOL! Bill Gates??? Right! Gates takes care of himself! He wasn't in the area that was flooded. In fact the area I'm in was dealing more with mudslides and are definitely "seasonal" occupants.

I had to laugh at the reference to Bill Gates, because we all know how hard it is to even get a State to put in a crosswalk. Just so happens a main highway goes right past his place. Our property line is on a State Highway and our property is only 50 ft. deep, so you know we get a lot of traffic noise. He probably has a couple hundred feet from his home to the highway, but decided it was too close, so he paid the State and paid for the construction to have the road moved!!! I'm not kidding! He now has a quiet residential road going past his place. The "new" highway is far from his place. Guess the State figured, Why not, if he pays for it we get a brand new road!"

We were just "lucky," I guess. The creek only came onto our property. Of course there were some terrible mudslides and a death 1/4 mile up the road. Not a good situation. We're just trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again. Snow predicted again tonight, and then a warming spell. That means a raging creek. The State's idea of a temporary "fix" was to clean some of the debris out of the culvert and dump a load of large rocks at the opening to filter water and keep debris out. The ditches are full again.

Am I just dense, or by blocking the opening with rocks, won't any branches, leaves, and other debris quickly block the flow???

Geesh, sometimes I beat myself up because I can't think as quickly as I could before my injury, but I'm beginning to think even with a brain injury I have more common sense than some, LOL!

And you are right, I may have to divorce that hubby of mine! After 38 years though, I'm not sure I want to do that <wink>!

Thanks for all the support, both in trouble shooting and emotional support. This has been pretty rough.

Gratefully,
Linda

[Yanita]

Hi,

You said your Hubby has been removing the mud from under your home..what condition are the piers in, are they still straight or have some been misplaced, leaning, etc...

Seems it appears that you live in a cold climate the crack in the marriage line would not surprise me just from general weather conditions.

If all the flood damage and mudslides have occurred in your area, I would presume that your state will call it a disaster area, and then FEMA will step in...but again, this is not your primary residence and if you have insurance you might not be eligible.

If FEMA is called in then you should be able to get help completing the forms through there temp offices.

Just my thoughts here, but I really do not think your home is going to collapse around you, so please calm your fears in that area.

If possible could you post some pics of your marriage line as well as the mud and piers under your home?

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Yanita

[Linda L]

OK, are you all ready for your daily laugh??? You can tell I'm not that familiar with a MH. When Greg referred to the "Marriage Crack" I thought he was talking about me trying to prove this was my Primary residence, but still MARRIED even though this is not my husband's Primary! At least now I know what the "seam" between the sections is called, LOL!

Yanita we don't actually get a lot of really cold weather here, the temps in winter usually are above freezing with just a few days that fall below, and a few that drop into the 20's. I'm in Washington State, on the water, on Puget Sound.

This area HAS been declared a Federal Disaster Area which is why I applied to FEMA. Actually we were quite lucky, places South of us were completely devastated. As far as FEMA, it was Katrina all over again. As of a few weeks ago they had only paid 7% of the claims, and this flooding occurred on Dec. 1. These people have no homes, no jobs, and nowhere to go. That was one of the reasons I waited a bit---I didn't see ours as a priority and was hoping they would take care of the really needy first.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "piers" but the MH is sitting on what look like large cinder blocks. They seem secure and don't seem to be leaning. Inside everything still seems level. My concern now, after finding the "Marriage Seam" separating is that the blocks are sinking in the soft, saturated ground. This is why I want to get someone out to do an inspection. Again, we didn't have this done earlier for a few critical reasons.

Our property is 50 ft deep and 100 ft wide with the 100 ft being on the water. State code NOW says our septic has to be 100 ft from the water (not possible). Same issue with our well. The body of water we are on is having major environmental issues mostly from over development and timber clear-cutting, but the State/County is looking for anything to pin blame on. We got the word from neighbors very early that the County was following FEMA and red-tagging places. If we show up on their radar they would require us to put in an engineered septic system ($10,000 in 1998 and they don't work well) and a filtration system on our well (several thousand dollars). Not a problem for the Bill Gates crowd, but breaks our bank! Right now our systems are working fine, and since the Salmon Recovery people test the water right in front of our place every week (just a coincidence, we have a landmark that is easy to identify, so they check here as well as many other areas) I'm sure they would report it if they found sewage.

I haven't mentioned insurance because we don't have flood insurance. Don't know if any of you have looked at it, but if you notice, in flood areas most people don't. It is a Federally managed program through your insurance company. Tons of paperwork---things like having to submit all kinds of measurements and very time consuming technical specs you have to get from the County. Then IF they approve, it costs a LOT---way more in the long run than the cost to repair/replace things.

I am going to try to post a couple pictures. I'll post a couple showing under the MH and some from just the flooding---assuming I can figure out how to post them!

I'm going to contact the SBA tomorrow to see if they can help.

Thanks again!

Linda

***HELP!!! OK, I thought the pictures would upload to the message but they don't Do I need to open an album?

[Yanita]

Hi,

Marriage line is the seam that comes to together to anchor the 2 halves together.

Piers are the stacks of blocks that your home sits on.

To make this thread easier to follow lets just contain this to the concerns of the structure. You can make a post about insurances and FEMA in the Off Topic forums.

Not sure how anyone has determined that your mobile home is beginning to settle into the mud yet. Unless your home is showing signs of interior damage, or the roof line looks like it is sagging in areas, or the marriage lines are developing large gaps.

Please read the post Upload pics thread in the Website Questions forum, there are several there that tell how to upload pics.

Thanks Yanita

[Greg]

Linda, you may want to consider Mark's book available in the "parts & Books" section of the site. It is geared towards the DYI people, but there is a wealth of information of all home owners. Greg