Nearly three years of frustration and an unending sense of helplessness and impending doom flowed out of Tiffany Smith in five minutes at Akron City Hall on Jan. 5.
Backed by her family as she stood in front of City Council, Smith became emotional as she spoke publicly for the first time about the sewage that leaked into their Kenmore home, their sewer line that was busted by a city contractor, the repair costs demanded by the city that she couldn’t afford, the legal threats and the compounding consequences to her family, particularly for her son, who has medical issues.
“For three years it feels like I have been dying a slow death, like someone sentenced to death row and you know what’s coming,” Smith told Signal Akron in an interview on Jan. 9. Thirty-five months before her council appearance, a city-hired contractor who was attempting to clear roots from the old clay sewer line on her property used a high-pressure water jet and broke it instead.
“I’ve always been taught that when you do something wrong, when you break something, you fix it.
Thomas Smith
Since then, the family of five has discarded used toilet paper in plastic bags to avoid clogging whatever’s left of the line, which remains unrepaired. “We’ve been living in dread for three years.”
As the video of Smith’s emotional pleas spread online throughout the country, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik, who met with Smith immediately after she spoke, announced in a Thursday press release that the city would cover the costs to replace the line at the center of the controversy and review “how we approach situations like this in the future.”
Sewer problems begin in early 2023
Smith told Signal Akron she reported that sewage was backing up into the basement of her 98-year-old Kenmore home — on a steep hill overlooking the western edge of Summit Lake — in February of 2023. The city and multiple contractors spent much of the next month and a half attempting to clear the line, which was apparently obstructed by the roots of a massive oak tree she said was on a nearby property.
Toward the end of March, Smith said, and without input from her or her husband, one company attempted to clear the blockage with pressurized water because traditional “snakes” couldn’t reach the blockage on their unusually long line. That water jet destroyed a key section of the aging clay line, flooding her basement and garage with raw sewage.
Smith said the city and drain companies at that point quickly abandoned any efforts to fix the line. Signal Akron reviewed multiple letters sent to Smith, pressuring her — and threatening her with prosecution at one point — to fix it herself because the blockage was on her property and causing sewage to enter a neighboring property.
In one letter, weeks after the city-hired contractor broke the clay line with the water jet, a City of Akron attorney told Smith that their investigation determined the break was on private property, which made it solely her responsibility to fix it. The attorney told her to hire a contractor and stop contacting city employees about it.
(Above: Watch Tiffany Smith’s emotional plea to Akron City Council.)
In a November 2024 letter, the city threatened to prosecute and imprison Smith if she didn’t excavate and repair the sewer line by Jan. 31, 2025, saying she was in violation of an earlier order from December of 2023 ordering her to supply the city with a repair plan. It recommended three options, including one fix that was nearly $35,000, based on an earlier estimate.
Failing to comply with the city’s sewer repair order, that letter said, “constitutes a misdemeanor of the fourth degree, punishable by a fine of up to $250 and 30 days imprisonment for each day the violation continues,” per the city code.
Smith told Signal Akron that she and her husband can’t afford that. They’ve pumped their life savings into renovating their home to make it livable for their middle child, now 11, who has severe asthma and other health conditions exacerbated by dust and mold. And they also have two additional children — now 14 and seven — to raise.
Last month, the city sent Smith another letter stating that because she still hadn’t made the repairs herself, the city “will be hiring a contractor” to do the sewer repairs and that she will be billed for it, along with any other associated costs. If she doesn’t pay for the repairs within 30 days, the costs would be tacked onto her property tax bill, the letter stated. It includes an old estimate of $34,500 from a local plumbing company for the work.
After the video of Smith at the council meeting went viral, the city announced in a press release that it would pay for the repairs, reversing its nearly three-year-old position.
“The court of public opinion is the only way humanity came back into this situation and that’s what saved us — hopefully,” Tiffany Smith’s husband, Thomas, said about the city’s change of course. “I’ve always been taught that when you do something wrong, when you break something, you fix it. If that would have occurred from the beginning, none of this would have happened. It feels like the little people aren’t worth caring about. There are so many people that systems hurt that can’t do anything. I’m just glad it’s us because I’m here for the fight. I’m here to stand up for my family.”
Attorney Imokhai Okolo is representing the Smiths. He told Signal Akron that the issue boils down to the city not communicating with the Smiths about the risks, liabilities and implications of the repair work before it initiated the fix of the blockage in early 2023 and then not seeing their humanity in the aftermath.
“In the grand scheme of finances, this is a very, very, very small fix for the city,” Okolo said. “It’s the lack of trying to see people as people. You should not have to go to City Council with your family to expose everything and do all this testimony for them to care.”