The Area Formerly Known as Lawn

On the almost level area by the house {okay, mobile home with additions} there once upon a time was a lawn. What happened to it?

One fall my septic line plugged and backed up, flooding my bathroom. I was told it was probably a full septic tank so have it pumped out... but where is it? A "Bobcat" was brought in and dug a trench about 60' long by 5-6' deep, and found not even a sign of a pipe or anything. I had to fill this all in with a shovel, and this pretty much destroyed a large part of the lawn.

While waiting for me to find more financing before they came back to dig more in another area, I talked to a lady I knew that has Spririt Guides. Tricia had never been to my home, had no idea where I live, but consulted her Guides and told me exactly where the septic tank is. I had the Bobcat driver dig where Tricia said and they found it. Unfortunately, it's underneath the tire retaining wall I mentioned earlier. Thankfully, at both ends of the 6'+ area of the wall, there are parts only 3'+ high and it was under the southern most 3'+ end of the wall. This was bad enough as due to the digging that part of the wall collapsed and I don't really know what to do about it.

After the tank was pumped, this guy tells me there's gravel in the septic tank, showing him that the line from toilet to tank is broken. A plumber ran a snake down the line and found it was plugged with some kind of roots, so yes, it was a broken line. Back came the Bobcat and dug up a bunch from the tank towards the house until the broken part was uncovered. This further destroyed both the tire retaining wall and the lawn, but the line was fixed and after about 2 months I finally could use my toilet and washing machine again, have baths, etc.

About 2 years later the septic again backed up and flooded the bathroom. This time it was again found that the line was broken, so back comes the Bobcat and digs up from the previous repair to the outside wall of the house, and replaced that part of the line. He assured me I'd be okay now.

Within a year or two "here we go again". This time the break was underneath the house itself. Back with the Bobcat, dug up the yard again to put in a "clean out line" from the existing line {which is about 5' deep at the outside wall of the mobile, dropping deeper from there} to just above the ground. Then a new line had to be put in from the toilet to join in with the clean out line. So, as of Fall 2004, the line from toilet to tank has all been replaced, so surely I won't have any more problems with this for many years to come.

Even though it should be okay now, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of covering up this area with anything permanent. It will have to be done in such a way that if ever it has to be dug up again, things will be easy to move and to replace to again make it look nice. For this reason, I am thinking everything in this area should be in pots or movable planters.

Now you know the sad sagga of The Area Formerly Known as Lawn