Complaint Review: Culligan - Nationwide

Culligan, Inc. improperly & illegally installed a potassium water softener which I believe caused our drinking water to become very corrosive & harder than our untreated water. I firmly believe this caused leaching of copper from our copper pipes. The Culligan-treated water contained acetone and a very high copper level (15mg/L) - more than 10 times the EPA's safe limit of 1.3mg/L. The untreated household water (city water) had copper levels at .05mg/L  & contained no acetone. My daughter & I both had symptoms which were consistent with copper poisoning, confirmed by our treating physician. My daughter now has ulcerative colitis.

Culligan was negligent when they incorrectly installed the softener. There are currently no federal/state safety regulations on these devices. Culligan is installing plumbing without a plumbers license, they are failing to obtain city permits , and in our city of Laguna Niguel, they are installing units which are prohibited by the water district. I have reported Culligan to the city, state, and federal authorities.

We removed the "gag order" in our settlement agreement so that we can inform others of the harms caused by this company. I can't tell you how frustrating this has been for us. I wonder how many others there are out there who are being exposed to their negligence and are suffering from the same symptoms as we did? Every person we ask assumes water treatment systems are fedrally regulated . ..  THEY ARE NOT!!

My goal is to help prevent others from being harmed by household water treatment softener systems. These companies need to be held accountable to provide safe, treated water. Maybe they should be required to perform water analysis testing to be sure their systems are working properly. These companies are NOT regulated and therefore, have no accountability. Consumers like myself, take for granted that companies like Culligan are making our drinking water safer to consume, when in this case, they made our water toxic. Additionally, the equipment used IS NOT TRACKED!! The malfunctioning system installed in our hoem could be in use today . . Culligan cannot tellus where it is.

The household water treatment systems sold, maintained, & installed by Culligan drain brine waste into our local sewers which is illegal, and they are getting away with it because there is no enforcement by city, state, & federal authorities. As a result, our community members & environment are being exposed to harmful toxins.

Our community needs to know that our local water districts have very strict safety regulations to follow to be sure that our drinking water is safe to ingest. It is unbelievable that a company can come in and chemically alter our regulated city water and not have any local/federal/state safety regulations to follow.

Please help get this information out to the public so that others are informed and can avoid potential harm.