Millennium Tower residents complain of unpleasant byproduct of continued tilt

Two residents of the troubled Millennium Tower have complained to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit about what they fear is the unpleasant byproduct of the continued tilting of the luxury high-rise — frequent drain backups. Jaxon Van Derbeken reports.

Stay connected:

Catch up on all the day's news:

Download our mobile app:

Watch us on OTT:

[maxgreddy]

The victims need to sue the developer ASAP before they declare bankruptcy or else they'll be left holding the bag.

[amandab.recondwith]

The tenants should be fully reimbursed, and the tower should be disassembled and brought down. It's a terrible hazard to the surrounding area, not to mention the poor souls who are living there. In short, the developer and the architects screwed up and need to be sued!

[MsArtistwannabe]

This isn’t safe. The building should be condemned.

[chadglass]

I've been following this debacle for years and no matter what is done the building never gets any better. They need to begin dismantling the building and condemn it before it collapses. A collapse tends to happen suddenly after warnings like this have been happening. This is a human tragedy in the making and people in power seem to be in denial of it.

[truracer]

As a contractor with 30 years experience I can assure you that this tilt will change drain slope. At 645 feet tall with a 29 inch lean means it is leaning .045 inch per foot. Since it is leaning diagonally I'll just figure that the building is 82.5 feet square giving it a diagonal of 116.67 feet. That means the floors are 5.25 inches out of level in the diagonal (116.45' x .045"). If the building has all horizontal drain pipes sloped at 1/4 inch per foot there should be no problem, but looking at build quality from pictures and videos as well as the engineer of record even mentioning it as a possible problem I wager that the drains are not sloped 1/4 inch per foot, but likely far less. I think horizontal sink and tub/shower drains are likely to be around 1/16( .0625") inch per foot. Build quality really doesn't look up to par for being "luxury"...

[clairdelunefan]

I learned recently that this building doesn't have a 13th floor. Heck, I didn't realize that modern high rises still did that. I have only seen the 13th floor skipped in some older buildings in NYC. So let me get this straight. The building planners were concerned that a silly, old superstition might bother some of the residents yet they built a total sh*t hole of a structure instead. Okay...check! Makes perfect sense.

Sheesh! You couldn't pay me to live there. It needs to be imploded, imo.

[CHOCKO]

Was surprised to see basic kitchen cabinets and appliances. Thought this was a luxury living

[tomcartwright]

All of that sewage is coming from the floors above him. A the third floor or below the sanitary line is blocked or crushed. What a nightmare. I don’t think the tower is fixable. No engineers have ever corrected serious foundation issues on a structure this big. They are screwed.

[radicalrick]

*All the tenants need to get together and file a massive class action lawsuit.* *THAT'S THE ONLY OPTION AVAILABLE! To allow this to drag on is idiotic.*

[kencarp]

That building is an unending NIGHTMARE, and I don't think anything is going to work to fix the tilt. It's insane how the architect ever thought a 10-foot thick floating foundation like that would work in that area, and then they changed the building from steel to poured concrete, which is MUCH heavier. If they had simply sunk piles all the way down to the bedrock in the first place, we wouldn't even be here talking about this. I've read that they saved $4M by NOT doing that, but that's a literal drop in the bucket for what they will need to pay to fix the building... if they even CAN fix it.

That said, stupid people flush all kinds of stuff down their toilets!

[kevin]

How do you sleep at night in that building knowing that even a moderate earthquake will cause this thing to fall down?!

[gglen]

Astonishingly 15 units are for sale and 4 units were bought in the Millenium Tower in the last 90 days, and the prices were not what you'd call "fire sale".

[enriquealvarez]

That building just needs to taken down . Period. It's pathetic

[ct]

I think it's entirely plausible that people have been flushing things they shouldn't, this happens all the time and causes numerous problems. However, the tilt absolutely will impact drainage in the building as so many pipes are installed with a specific gradient to allow controlled removal of waste and when the entire building is moving those pipes will not function as they should. The most likely explanation is that this is a combination of issues.
I would also no longer live there. I understand it's hard for them to move or sell, but safety should come first and I would have no trust in the developers who have been downplaying everything for so long.
Time for a class-action lawsuit if you ask me.

[sharon]

1st rule: NEVER buy a Condominium or Timeshare. Seriously, why would anyone pay $900, 000 for a slice of space in a building that you have no control over?

[micgant]

This is so sad. These people don't deserve this.

[puffnstuff]

Those residents need a class action lawsuit against the building constructor, manager and whomever else is liable for this condition. 29" is a lot of lean and I would not want to live in it. Once too much load moves from vertical to lateral something bad is going to happen and people will pay with their lives.

[edp]

i had that happen when I lived in an apartment. The neighbor downstairs had a clogged drain. They were not home at the time. I was out as well. The neighbor UPSTAIRS from WAS home, and was using his sink. He was unawares that the sink 2 floors down was clogged. All of us were on the same drain pipe. So what happened is that the upstairs neighbor sink was backing up at the clog in the drain pipe 2 floors down. When the drain water reached the level of MY sink, it filled up the sink and flowed over the edge of the sink on to my floor! I found this mess when returning later that day. This is what is happening to these Millenium Tower tenants. The clog is one floor below them, and the drain water is backing up to their level and running out on to their floor!

[jeanhansel]

These problems are only going to get worse as time goes on, causing drains and sewage to back-up, as shown in this report. Sporadic reports of these types of issues had been reported about three years ago. Add to this the flooding in the basement with exposed rebar in the walls,
gaps between the elevators and floors, uneven floors in the condos and popped out wIndows will cause, IMO, the building to be declared unlivable.

[Alex-Defatte]

As a previous building maintenance technician, I can attest that tenants will flush ANYTHING down their drains and then have the nerve to look at you like you're the one who's crazy. I can't imagine adding a tilt to that equation. Those poor technicians.