Your subdivision has a detention pond. Most Farmington Hills homeowners have never checked it.

In Farmington Hills, the most common overlooked cause is a subdivision detention pond that isn't doing its job. A meaningful part of this city's stormwater system isn't the public storm sewer at all — it's a network of privately-owned, HOA-maintained detention ponds built into individual subdivisions, per the City's own stormwater guidance. Those ponds silt in over time. Once accumulated sediment exceeds roughly a quarter of the pond's original design depth, it's lost real capacity, and a storm that should have drained normally instead backs up onto the street or into a yard. Most residents have never once checked whether their subdivision's pond is actually maintained.

Start with your HOA or subdivision association — maintenance of a private detention basin is typically their responsibility, not the city's. If you don't know whether your subdivision has one, the City of Farmington Hills' stormwater management program (Chapter 33, Article IX of the city's Code of Ordinances) is the place to check. If your HOA can't tell you the last time the pond was inspected or dredged, that's worth raising at the next meeting — a pond running at reduced capacity is exactly the kind of thing that turns an ordinary storm into a flooded street.

Not the pond itself — that's a civil/drainage contractor or your HOA's responsibility. What we handle is what happens if that surface water actually reaches your house: extraction, drying, and repair of anything it touched. If the water stayed outside, there's nothing for us to do, and we'll tell you that plainly during a free inspection rather than invent a job.

Same day if it reached the house. Clean municipal water sitting against drywall or flooring starts moving toward a harder-to-restore category within roughly 24 to 48 hours, the same clock as any other clean-water event. A main break that stayed on the street or in the yard doesn't need restoration at all.

The inspection and the written scope are free. A clean-water event caught the same day, in an unfinished basement, is at the low end because little has to be removed. Anything that sat for days or reached a finished lower level costs more, because more porous material — carpet, pad, drywall — has to come out rather than just dry in place.

It depends on how the water reached your property. Surface water flooding from an overwhelmed or unmaintained detention pond is generally treated the same as other surface-water flooding — often excluded without separate flood coverage, since it originates from ground-level runoff rather than a sudden pipe failure. A water main break, by contrast, is usually treated as a sudden and accidental event more likely to be covered. Coverage determinations are made solely by your carrier after their own inspection; confirm the specifics with them.

Your HOA or subdivision management company first — they're responsible for the pond's maintenance, not the city and not us. If you don't have an HOA or can't get an answer, the City of Farmington Hills' stormwater program is the next call. We come in only once water has actually reached your property.

A typical clean-water event caught the same day, in an unfinished basement, runs 2 to 4 working days: extraction, then structural drying to a dry standard measured against an unaffected part of the house. Anything that sat longer or reached finished flooring and drywall takes longer, because more material has to be removed rather than simply dried.

Moisture content of the affected materials measured against a dry standard from an unaffected part of the same house, plus temperature and humidity readings in the affected space, an unaffected space, and outside — not a calendar date. Equipment pulled on a schedule instead of a reading is the most common reason a mold call shows up weeks later.