A Snake for Every Drain (Stephen Rehbein)

I was at the end of my rope. The area where I live, in south central Iowa in very rural country, is not an easy place to find contractors and businesses specializing in just everything. I had gone through all the plumbing services in the telephone books in a 25-mile area, including the ones recommended by my usual plumber, Denny's Plumbing and Heating (who tried but did not have the length and torque of equipment to reach the blockage) and those recommended to me by the local water department crew who had come to my house to ensure the problem was not in the city main (it was not) on July 17, 2014. Any plumbers I contacted who had the equipment told me their equipment was broken down and they were awaiting parts to fix it, and I was approaching the third week of a problem with a clogged sewer drain. I finally happened to go through a phone directory that covers most of southwest/southern Iowa and looked up "sewer" and found the listing for A Snake for Every Drain. I immediately called and told Stephen of my plight, as well as the fact that I was down to my last $6.00 for the month (SS monthly) and could not pay him outright for his services. He very, very kindly said that he would trust me to be good for the money, and that he would come to my house at "noonish" on July 18 and try to solve the problem, giving the warning that he could not fix broken pipes, were that the problem, he could only clear a drain of a blockage. Sure enough, today at 11:30 I happened to see a pickup truck pulling a trailer stop in front of the house. Stephen and his father-in-law, David, who sometimes works with him, had arrived to save the day. They worked for about 40 minutes, adding an additional length of line to the augur so they had 150 feet to work with, found and broke through the blockage and re-augured twice more to ensure they had cleaned the line thoroughly (I was running the household water in all the sinks, bathtub, toilet at their instruction while they worked). I was presented at the end of their work with a bill for $160, including tax and their trip from Humeston to Leon, which has to be at least 25 miles (unless you're a bird), and when I asked how much he wanted monthly Stephen told me I could pay as much or as little as I needed, as long as I paid on it monthly. He was kind and considerate, Iowa-friendly and someone I would recommend to anyone who needed help with getting to the source of the problem with a drain blockage. Hurray!! I can bathe and do laundry again!!