Crap dude! That’s awful!!!
The worst racket I’ve personally encountered was in JeffCo. My ex-gf’s mother had dementia and needed to move into assisted living. When we tried to sell their family home, the city came to inspect it and labeled the septic system as defective. The official notice that the home is no longer considered inhabitable (and therefore can’t be sold) was presented to us along with a bid to fix it for the low cost of $18,000.
We called around to people in that industry who said that it could be done for less, but the only people who can work on septic in JeffCo have to be approved by the government. The committee that approves vendors consists of the same folks who just handed us the $18k bid from the company they run on the side! We talked to folks in the state government who, immediately after hearing our story, replied - “Let me guess… you’re in Jefferson County, right?” Apparently it’s a known scam and no one can do anything about it.
The end result was that we found a guy who was approved by the county who said the system was fine in his expert opinion, but that occupancy approval wouldn’t come unless he did an overhaul. It cost $12 grand, which all came out of the life savings of a retired school teacher with dementia who needed that money to pay for assisted living. Fucking crooks…