Septic company destroyed my yard - pics are mostly screen grabs from a long video I took of damage. Located in central Indiana
Sorry for the long post - I’m looking for some advice because I really don’t know the best way to address this situation or what I should reasonably expect as a resolution.
Earlier this week I had my septic tank pumped for the first time since buying the house. When the crew arrived, I showed them where the tank was on the side of the house and they said they’d take care of it. About 30 minutes later, the guy knocked on my door and said, “We’re done, but we have a problem — we’re stuck and another truck is on the way to pull us out.” At that point, I was immediately worried about my yard. A pickup truck showed up but couldn’t get the septic truck out. Honestly, I think it made things worse because now the septic truck was so stuck it was bottoming out in the yard, and there was a second destroyed area from the pickup trying to pull it free. Then they brought in a backhoe, which continued tearing up the yard without getting the truck unstuck.
The guy came back up to me and said, “The truck is too heavy because it’s full. Do you mind if we offload some of the water into your yard?” I was completely dumbfounded. I said, “The poop?” He replied, “Not the actual waste, just some of the water,” and I said, “The poop water??” After an awkward silence, he told me they were going to have to pump everything back into my septic tank, get the truck unstuck, and then pump the tank again from the driveway. I told him I was uncomfortable with them putting it back into the tank because I didn’t know if there could be contamination issues. He assured me it wasn’t a concern and that they didn’t really have another option.
They eventually got the truck out and re-pumped the tank from the driveway using a long hose. At that point I mentioned that, given how much rain we’ve had lately, I didn’t understand why they hadn’t just pumped it from the driveway to begin with. He basically brushed it off with, “Yeah, that was my bad.”
Later that day they came back with a load of dirt and filled in the major holes and ruts, but said they’d need to return with more dirt. I also brought up the tire ruts running through the yard from the driveway to the back of the house. He kept insisting those would “bounce back,” but the issue isn’t just flattened grass — you can physically feel the deep ruts in the ground. They’re going to be a pain to mow over and they absolutely are not going to magically fix themselves.
My question is: what should I reasonably expect them to do to make this right? Is it unreasonable to expect them to properly level all the damaged areas and put down grass seed? So far they’ve only talked about adding dirt, not actually restoring the lawn.
To their credit, they did say I won’t have to pay until I’m completely satisfied with the yard. I’m planning to call them next week to clearly explain my expectations, but I don’t know much about lawn repair and I’m not sure what’s reasonable to ask for. I just know that dumping dirt into the worst holes is not a complete fix.