In February of 2011, we had a few bad winter storms. The temperatures got well below freezing, and our water pipes ended up freezing. We lost all running water to the house. I crawled under the house in the crawl-space and attempted to thaw the pipes, though I was unsuccessful. My wife called Wells Plumbing to get the problem taken care of ASAP, so that we could get our water back. We have a daughter who's a toddler to take care of. After about 5 days of not having water, the dishes were accumulating in the sink, and our kitchen floor became muddy from us going outside. Mud was tracked across the kitchen floor from our shoes.
On the 6th day, the plumber, Zack Hoover, arrived in the morning. He crawled underneath the house and evaluated the problem. The frozen area was in the shut-off valve and the valve had sprung a leak as well. He came to the door and informed me that he needed to turn off the hot-water heater before he could work on the water-line. I showed him where the hot-water heater was and he turned it off. He then went back under the house and began working. After about 45 minutes, he came back to the door and stated that the problem was fixed and that he replaced the valve. He then said he was going to turn the hot-water heater back on and that he'd be done. He went back and "turned the heater back on."
When he came back into the living-room where I was, I noticed that he looked at the mud on kitchen floor. He told me how much the repair would be and I began writing the check out. While I was doing this, he asked me, "Do you have a kid?" I said, "yes". He then asked me, "How old." I told him "15 months." He nodded his head with a weird look on his face and took the check. I was overcome with a deep feeling that something was wrong. After he left, I continued my day as any other. I took care of my daughter and spent time with her. I decided to wait until my wife got home that evening before I did any house-work in the kitchen since there wasn't very much to do; just dishes and mop the floor. 30 minutes of work at the most. I'm the type of person that won't leave my daughter alone just so I can do housework.
I would rather my wife be there to be with her when I do work around the house. I guess I'm just a bit overprotective, but it's a good thing. That night, my wife got home and decided to make diner. I figured since there were going to be more dirty dishes, I'd just wait until after dinner, then I'd get to work. While my wife was cooking, I fed my daughter. Right after my daughter finished eating and I cleaned her up, I heard a car-door shut outside. It was just after sunset, about 6:30pm. I saw flashlights outside the window coming to the door. My first thought was "police." Then there was a loud banging on the door. I opened the door and saw two sheriff officers standing there. One sheriff spoke up and said, "We've received a complaint....oh YOU guys...about the conditions of the house involving a small child...Mind if we come it...."
As he said "mind if we come in," the officers had started to walk towards the door already and I reflexively moved out of the way, but I never said they could come in. They saw the kitchen floor and told us that we needed to clean it up. Which it had already been planned. But the officer had a major attitude and even used curse words when speaking to me and my wife in front of our daughter! He bluntly said "We'll com back next Tuesday, and there better be a remarkable improvement; no more s**t on the floor!" This upset me. The only person who had been there was the plumber. So since we had NO water for 5 days and could not do dishes or mop the floor, the plumber REPORTED us when he was there to FIX the problem that caused the mess! I was very upset. I cleaned the floor and did the dishes. While cleaning, I noticed that the water was WAY too hot. I took a meat thermometer and held it under the water. It was 196 degrees Fahrenheit!!
I went back to the water-heater and found out that the plumber had turned the temperature of the water ALL THE WAY UP. There was NO excuse for this because it was a completely separate lever that the shut-off lever. Anything above 125 degrees Fahrenheit is a major hazard. A child can get 3rd degree burns at less than 130 degrees and an adult can get 3rd degree burns at temperatures over 150 degrees. Also, temperatures over 130 degrees Fahrenheit are an EXPLOSION hazard in propane water-heaters like we have!! It could have KILLED US, or severely injured us!! There was NO excuse for this...
That Tuesday, the sheriff officer (with the attitude) showed up about 10:30am, but this time, with a CPS agent. They did a walk-through of the house and found NO problems. My wife was at work that day, but her mom came over to be with me for moral support, plus she was a witness that the house was perfectly clean before our pipes froze. My wife's mother told the CPS worker that the house was always kept spotless, and that it's a little hard to mop and was dishes when you don't have running water. But the CPS woman (as sociopathic as those people are) snapped back and said, "well there's a big difference between not having any water, and not cleaning!"
That only made sense in the CPS worker's mind, because anyone who is not sociopathic would know that this made NO sense whatsoever. The CPS worker, Corissa Cemper, then asked my wife's mother what she did for a living. My wife's mother then responded and said that she was a nurse for many years and recently retired. The CPS worker then said "Oh, well then you should have known better than to let this house get like this!" What??? My wife's mother doesn't even live here!
The CPS worker then asked me, "What are you going to do to insure that this house doesn't end up in this condition again?" I said, "What do you mean by "THIS" condition? The house is CLEAN. We have running water now. That was the problem!" But I said that "I will either try to prevent another cold winter from ever happening again, or I'll insulate our water-pipes very well. Either way, they will not freeze again and we won't have this sort of un-necessary trouble again." They ended up leaving. I knew that wasn't the end of it. Just the thought of someone trying to take my daughter away and trying to get us into trouble really upset me.
I no longer felt safe for myself or my family, especially my daughter in this house after that. I can't sleep without waking up after being suddenly overcome with fear; I have to get up in the middle of the night and check the doors to make sure they are locked and that no one has come in through the windows to get my daughter. The sanctity and security of our home is gone. I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I eat, sit down, rest, spend time with my daughter, use the restroom, take a shower. I just feel like EVERYTHING I do can and will be used against me in order to take my daughter from me.
There's not a day that goes by that I don't dwell on this incident. My chest gets so tight that I feel like I'm having a heart-attack because of the sharp, stabbing pain and difficulty breathing. I go into panic attacks every time I think about this. Even when I see a Wells Plumbing Van I go into a panic attack. After about 6 weeks, there was a knock at the door at about 3:30pm on a Monday. I answered the door and it was a sheriff and the same CPS worker again. They said they wanted to do a follow-up. I instantly started going into a panic attack.
I thought about how I have been made to feel over all this, and all the emotional suffering I've had to go through because of this, and I decided not to let them in without a warrant. I asked them if they have a warrant, and the sheriff said "No, we don't." I said, "Well, get a warrant and you can come in." The sheriff seemed satisfied with that and shook his head. The CPS worker then stepped toward me and said very rudely, "Is the reason you are not letting us in because the house is in bad shape?" I said, "Not at all. I has absolutely NOTHING to do with the house, it has to do with how I feel. I don't feel safe with this, and I want to exercise my constitutional rights in this situation. Get your warrant and you can come in."
The CPS worker then stated that, "It's important that you cooperate with us. If you don't let us in, I will enlist you and your wife in the Child-Abuse registry. It could cost her her job and make it difficult for either of you to get hired." That really upset me. Just because I DARE exercise my constitutional rights, she wants us registered as "Child-Abusers"in retaliation? Corruption and abuse of "power" at it's worst. She then stated, "The reason that she will do this is because of my choosing not to let them in, she can't "Verify" that my child is "safe."
That makes no sense either. I can't verify that the people who live down the street's children are safe in their house because I can't verify it since I don't know them or enter their house, does that mean I should report them and they should be listed as "Child-Abusers?" I think NOT. After saying this, they left. Then that brings us up to today. We get a letter from the CPS worker, Corissa Cemper, stating that they have decided that based upon the "evidence" they have, they are going to enlist us as "Child-Abusers."
What garbage. There WAS NO EVIDENCE. It was a dirty kitchen floor from not having running water! Can't they get that through their heads? I think they can, they are just too sociopathic to do so. They just LOVE hearing the screaming and crying of parents and children as they children are ripped away from their loving parents and adopted out to pedophiles and abusive people for profit. I think, out of all this pain and suffering, my wife and I deserve some MAJOR compensation for this false report made out of malicious intent.
I just don't want to live in this town anymore, especially after finding out that either the CPS worker, or a sheriff officer broke their "confidentiality" and rumors about us spread around town. Rumors that were COMPLETELY untrue and absolutely repulsive. I went to the gas station and couldn't even get my products paid for without being harassed by people I have never even met in my life about this. The thing that upsets me the most is that it's all built on lies and the plumber reported us over something that was beyond our control and it was the VERY thing HE was there to fix!! I just don't get it. I need help figuring out what to do about this. This has literally driven me crazy....
Thank you for your time...