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Woman's Home Flooded With Sewage After Comcast Cuts Pipe In Yard

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Christine Padgett is on a fixed income. Her husband is bedridden. So when sewage spontaneously started pouring into her Bourbonnais home through her tub and shower drains in October, the mess and subsequent cost was almost too much.

"I just started hollering, 'Oh my God, what is this?' and crying," Padgett said.

The Padgetts' caregiver helped clean it up.

"You could smell it," Sally Brueggert said. "It was pretty nasty."

But what caused it?  The man Padgett hired to fix the problem, dug into her yard and found a cable cut straight through her sewer piping.

"He said, 'You do have a problem.' He said, 'It's a utility line. It's Comcast," Padgett said.

sewage pipe cut
(Credit: Dave Marshall)

Padgett says no Comcast employee ever told her work would be done in her yard.

The repair and clean up job cost Padgett almost $1,200. That's money she doesn't have. She immediately filed a claim with the cable company. Then she called. And called. And called. And called.

"She put me on hold," Padgett said. "And then I get the busy signal after about 20 minutes and hang up."

She got no reimbursement and no communication.

"And then to put salt on the wound they increased my Comcast bill," Padgett said.

Padgett isn't alone. The Better Business Bureau closed more than 7,800 Comcast complaints nationwide last year.  That's 13 per state per month. Padgett heard nothing for months until CBS 2 called Comcast.  Within an hour, they'd called her twice.

"They wanted copies of my bills so they could pay me," Padgett said.

CBS 2's Dana Kozlov spent about 45 minutes on the phone with a Comcast employee who confirmed that Padgett called on Oct. 11 and reported the specific problem.  The employee says the matter has now been escalated but couldn't say why it took more than three months for anything to happen.

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