Letters to the Editor: A cautionary tale of the dangers of self-certification in construction

To the editor: A very real story from my own experience of self-certification should give us pause (“In Palisades visit, Trump officials vow to speed up permits for fire rebuilding,” Feb. 4). In 1985, after having come home after working all night, I was sound asleep when a pounding on my back door awakened me. My gardener, who had begun work, was shaking as he said, “There’s a hole in your backyard!” I went out to see what he was talking about.

What I discovered was a shock. We found a brick-lined 25-foot hole, 4 feet in diameter, that had been covered by some now rotted boards under about 6 inches of soil. My gardener had broken through but had been able to catch the side of the hole, saving himself.

Contacting county code, I learned it was a sewage sump used by houses in the neighborhood when, after World War I, what had been an orange orchard was subdivided.

In 1951, the county installed a live sewer system requiring property owners to fill their sumps with sand and self-certify the job was done. Whoever owned my house at that time had “self-certified” the sump was filled. Forty years later, the dirt-covered boards had rotted, laying a trap for the unlucky.

We should be wary of simple, ideologically convenient solutions to complex problems. The rush to recover from disastrous wildfires is no exception.

Stephen Montgomery, Bakersfield