Main line misfortune...or was it?

[Marjorie Patton]

We bought our first SF rental property this past fall just outside Denver. We went through all the initial inspections, made some larger replacements like a new electrical box and furnace and were lucky enough to find WONDERFUL tenants. Things were running smoothly.

Fast forward 6 months and the tenants informed us they have water backing up in the basement drain (laundry room). No problem, called a roto rooter type company as I thought this was just a clogged drain since WE HAD THE MAIN LINE SCOPED AND CLEANED 6 MONTHS AGO. Turns out there is a belly in the main line and a weakening where roots are entering the line. Prognonsis- you need a new main line. 

The house was built in 61, the pipes are clay, the main line had never been replaced- we knew this would be a risk when we bought the home. What irks me most is, shouldn't the scope/sewer line inspection company have seen this? Could things have changed that much in 6 months? On top of all of this the company that did the scope ONLY provides that service- as in, they won't clean it, repair it, etc. as they explained, by only doing the inspection it allows them to be unbiased. They came to scope it originally, said they couldn't until we had it cleaned bc there were too many roots interfering with the inspection. So we hired another company to clean it and then they came back (and charged us again) to do another scope.

Calling on my BP community to help me understand if I've just hated this company from the beginning and this is all reasonable and par for the course OR they made a mistake and now we've missed our window to ask the seller for any kind of $$ concession.

Ranty and never thought I would spend so much time on plumbing,

Marj