CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — This is a Troubleshooters report about a family living on the city's West side in the Village Green subdivision.
They called us for help finding the party responsible for breaking their water meter and some pipes underground in front of their house, and then getting them to come back and repair it.
The Troubleshooters made several calls and sent out several emails. And eventually found who the family was looking for.
Juan Gonzalez said that every morning since mid-January, he sees mud and standing water in his front yard when he walks out his front door.
"They were digging around here, and they hit the water meter. Took the water meter out and then re-connected it, and replaced the pipe they had broken on our side, but they didn't do a good job doing that one," Gonzalez told us.
He believes the damage was done when contractors were digging and laying underground cable lines back in October.
There are orange utility marking flags throughout the neighborhood. They are used for communications, alarm or signal lines, or conduits.
Fortunately, Gonzalez told the Troubleshooters, his water bill hasn't been impacted by the busted line or meter, yet, but he wants the people responsible to fix it. And the sooner the better.
"Just to find out who the contractor was, and have the contractor come by to finish the job, or re-do the job that they didn't do good," he added.
So on Feb. 7, the Troubleshooters went to work, doing what we do to get resolutions to issues like this.
We sent emails to the city water department, Astound, formerly Grande, AT&T, and Spectrum, trying to find answers.
We urged Gonzalez to call the city's 311 non-emergency number to make them aware of his situation.
On Thursday, Feb.9 a spokesperson for Astound acknowledged to the Troubleshooters, it was one of their contractors.
In a statement sent to us, they said, in part:
"Once we heard about the customer's concern, we sent out a crew to make the needed repairs. We are committed to providing our customers with unmatched service, and we are happy to have this issue resolved as expediently as possible."
And on that same Thursday, Gonzalez sent us pictures from his phone of contractors working to fix his water meter and underground pipes.
"Well, I'm glad we were able to help you. Thank you 'cause once I called you, it didn't take even a week and a half when we did the calling and that's when people started showing up."
One more bit of good news according to Gonzalez, who told us a representative with the contractor making the repairs, toldhim they will cover the cost of any increases in his upcoming water bill.
This is another Troubleshooters Case Closed.
