WEST KELOWNA – An Okanagan family is launching a legal battle with the District of West Kelowna over some major water problems in their home. The couple has racked up enormous bills from a series of flooding incidents over the last three years. They claim it’s the district’s fault alleging a water main managed by the district is what caused the flooding that has set them back tens of thousands of dollars.
“Every single day we talk about this, we argue about this, I cry, it’s just horrible,” says home owner Keilen Gurney.
The water problems seem like a never ending nightmare for her and husband, Ryan. Gurney says it all started with a basement flood not long after they moved into the house in West Kelowna about three years ago.
“There wasn’t a lot of damage then, it was just a little bit of flooring, but then it got progressively worse over the years and then the flooding got worse so we had to take out all of the dry wall,” explains husband Ryan. “Then we had to have an excavation company try to come in and fix the problem.”
He says the excavation helped but it didn’t fix the issue.
“Over time all the pressure of all the water in here has just done so much damage to our home that it’s almost to the point where it’s probably just better off we just build a new one,” says Ryan.
The couple suspected the root cause of the issue was a broken water main and contacted the District of West Kelowna several times to look into it.
The district declined an interview request from Global News on Tuesday saying they won’t speak on a matter that is before the courts.
The Gurney’s are convinced the broken water main is the culprit because this past fall, crews identified a broken water main in front of their home. After fixing that, their water problems vanished. Gurney says they’re not alone, a neighbor of theirs had similar water problems which also disappeared since the fix of the water main.
The Gurney’s have filed a lawsuit against the district, an alternative they didn’t want to resort to, but they’re left with a big hit to their bank account.
“The total cost for us is about $50,000 we’ve spent so far and it will probably be another $200,000 to $250,000 to fix the rest of the house,” says Ryan. The district has until early April to file a statement of defense.
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