Overflowing toilet leaks through office ceiling

Lawrence County Clerk of Courts Mike Patterson was at Tuesday’s commissioners meeting to praise employees and get some help with a problem of sewage leaking through his office’s ceiling.

The issue is that people using the bathroom on the second floor of the courthouse are flushing things they shouldn’t and that is causing sewage to leak through the ceiling.

That means that court records have to be quickly covered with plastic, staff are sent home and then the courthouse maintenance guys clean up the mess.

The most recent incident was Thursday, Feb. 13.

“We were in the office and it started leaking through the ceilings,” Patterson said.

“It started dripping on the carpets and we had to cover our files up real quick and then sent my people home, because they shouldn’t work in that environment,” Patterson said.

He added the issue is the design of the plumbing.

“It’s all from people throwing stuff in the toilet. It gets caught in there, stops it up, it overflows and leaks down,” Patterson explained.

And this is not the first incident the office has had with stuff dripping from the ceiling. He said it has been happening since he took office in 2009.

“I can’t tell you how often this has happened,” he said.

During the meeting, Patterson thanked members of the courthouse maintenance staff.

“Those three went out of their way to help and get things done,” Patterson said.

Patterson asked the commissioners to help get the pipe system redesigned to stop the flow.

“I know we talked about this the other day and that design is not good. But there has to be something done,” he said. “This has just happened too many times. I know it has nothing to do with you guys. It’s just the way this place was built.”

The clerk of court’s office is on the first floor of the courthouse annex that was built in 1978.

Commissioner Mike Finley said the commissioners have talked about the situation and they would like to see something is done and “we want it to be done right. And we would like to come in and fix the damage that was done to your office.”

Commissioner Colton Copley said they don’t know what their options are on getting it fixed.

“We need to get it addressed completely,” he said. “We can never guarantee the work but we’d like to get it fixed so we think it won’t happen again.”

Commissioner Deanna Holliday said they want a fix it as much as Patterson does.

“It is one of the unique challenges we have with buildings of this age,” she said. “We want to make sure it is fixed and you are in a good safe environment,” Holliday said. With that being said, we are subject to the nature of people too. So, we may put a plan in place where we feel it is fixed, we are still at the mercy of those using the system to do the right thing.”