Yesterday, a Fawcett Energy worker turned up at 48 Linwood Street to deliver 365 gallons of oil for winter heating. They doubtless double-checked the address before beginning to pump the oil in, hearing gallon after gallon flow from his tanker into the house.
Then a realization. Yes, they were indeed at 48 Linwood Street. But they were supposed to be at 48 Linwood Street, Malden and they were, in fact, at 48 Linwood Street, Medford. On paper, this is an understandable mistake – the two Linwood Streets are only a 10-minute drive from one another. In practice, this oopsie may have utterly destroyed a house.
Wow, several things had to go wrong for this to occur: 1) Conversion contractor didn't cap the pipe 2) Neither did homeowner 3) Fawcett delivered to wrong city 4) …without checking the fill pipe tag 5) …and kept filling after exceeding the usual 275 gallons
— J G (@jgreene617) November 25, 2025
It appears that while the wrong house indeed have a pipe outside for the tanker to connect to, it wasn’t plugged into an actual oil tank or capped off. But this is absolutely Fawcett’s fault as they should have double-checked they were on the right street before beginning to pump.
Total write-off
So, how does the interior of the house look?
The hazmat situation in that house is no joke! The entire block probably smells like diesel. When it soaks in, it will get even worse. There is no getting rid of that smell. The amount of money to fix this, it’s cheaper for insurance to knock down and rebuild. What a mess!
— Jamesaichhhh (@James_aich) November 25, 2025
As those knowledgeable about this type of situation underline, this is not a simple or quick job to clean up. Heating oil (also known as furnace oil) has a strong, oily chemical smell that’s intentionally designed to be noticeable to alert homeowners of leaks in their system.
Filling a basement with it means, as one reply identifies, that the “house is ruined, the smell will never go away“. Another says one of their friends had this exact situation happen to them after the oil company used the wrong fill pipe on their house. The outcome: “Never got back into their house, really big lawsuit settlement.”
But it gets worse! The house isn’t the only thing that’s a write-off: the land underneath it may be permanently contaminated too!
Basically a superfund site.
— JamesM (@im_an_A_G) November 25, 2025
That house is close to a total loss I bet.
So, all in all, a very costly goof from Fawcett Energy. We can only feel for the poor homeowners and hope they get full compensation as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you have an unsealed fill pipe on your home that opens directly into the basement, maybe consider getting that sealed off as soon as possible.
