After seven years of living at his home on Stoddard Street, Tom Petronchak was shocked to learn that he wasn’t hooked up to the town’s sewer line.
The surprise came on Easter morning, when raw sewage backed up into his backyard.
Petronchak had been paying his town sewer bill for seven years.
When he bought the house it was advertised as on the sewer system.
But he really had a septic tank the whole time.
He has been talking with town and Water Pollution Control Authority officials since Easter, when his family discovered the problem.
“I’m trying to get everything back, plus the pumping fees,” Petronchak said last week.
The WPCA offered to refund three years worth of his bills, Petronchak said, which comes to about $547.
The WPCA has also offered to waive all inspection fees if Petronchak decides to hook into the town’s sewer system, according to First Selectman Kurt Miller and WPCA chairman John Fanotto, Jr.
Miller said the total amount of reimbursement and waivers would equal the amount of money Petronchak paid in sewer bills.
But Petronchak wants the town to pay the cost of hooking him up to the sewer system, which could be several thousand dollars.
“I feel I should be hooked up,” he said.
Miller said the town wouldn’t foot that cost. Miller suggested Petronchak go after other responsible parties in the mistake — such as the lawyers representing the real estate deal or the home inspector who checked out the property before Petronchak purchased it.
“The town only has a certain level of responsibility,” Miller said.
Fanotto said the town never pays for any resident to be hooked up. WPCA records indicate the home was never hooked into the sewer system, which was installed in 1972, Fanotto said.
The town started charging a sewer use fee in 1991.
The WPCA is investigating how the home was put on the list of sewer users despite not being hooked up.
“We’re trying to find out why this happened and why someone previously didn’t bring it to our attention,” Fanotto said.
Fanotto said in his 12 years on the WPCA, he has only seen a handful of problems. In almost every other case, a sewer user was hooked up, but not paying for the use, he said.
“There’s really nothing we can point the finger at right now and say this is why it happened,” Fanotto said. ​“It’s really such an anomaly.”