Everstory, owners of Oakview Cemetery, reply to allegations of unkempt mausoleum

ROYAL OAK — An array of complaints brought forth by the Sdao family have been circling the Oakview Cemetery mausoleum.

John Sdao said that the mausoleum has insects, leakage, failed air conditioning and heating, and bad smells.

Oakview Cemetery, located at 1032 N. Main St., has had a few different owners over the years and is currently owned by Everstory.

Vice President of People Operations and Quality at Everstory, Michele Stone, said that these complaints are not as they seem and are currently being worked on and investigated further.

Everstory took over Oakview Cemetery at the end of 2023.

Since 1996, John Sdao has been visiting his family and loved ones at Oakview Cemetery in Royal Oak, and he said that the conditions of the mausoleum are far from welcoming.

His mother, father, aunt, uncle, nephew and son have been laid to rest in the mausoleum, which he said was promised to be a well-maintained sanctuary for peace.

“We didn’t know a whole lot about mausoleums, but they (management) said that you could have an internal light always on, it would be climate controlled, and it would be heated in the winter and cooled in the summer,” Sdao said.

When Sdao’s son died in April of 2012, Sdao began to visit the site every day, and soon started noticing the problems.

Sewage backup was one of the first problems to occur, Sdao said. Being a plumber, he investigated it himself and suggested to the manager at that time in 2012 that they treat it once a month.

“It was being maintained properly, the place was really nice. After he (the manager) retired they went through numerous people, and around four different owners,” he said. “They weren’t putting money into it, the chairs were all ripped, dry rotted, it was really bad.”

Sdao said he and his family have constantly complained, to no avail.

“My son is on ground level, and raw sewage is coming right in front of him,” he said. “My concern was if it ever got into his casket, and was it wrecked? (Management) said, ‘No, no, everything should be good.”

When it rains, according to Sdao, water seeps through the back of the wall where the caskets are located and onto the floor.

The temporary solution that management has put up is an industrial fan to dry the area. The carpet currently has visible water stains.

Stone said that the description of the leaking behind the wall is inaccurate, but there is a leaky hole in the ceiling of the mausoleum, and it does leak onto the floor.

“It (the roof) is currently in the hands of a project manager to resolve,” Stone said. “It is in the process of resolution. In the interim, we are providing temporary patching and taping when we can, but it does need some larger repairs that, like I said, are in process.”

Stone said that they are currently using fans and moisture-pulling devices to dry the area, and that the timeline for when the roof will be completely repaired is unknown at the moment.

One of the recurrent problems comes from “sewer flies,” according to Sdao. He said the bugs “attack” anybody who walks through the mausoleum door, and they infest the bathroom.

“They are all over the place; they’re in your hair, up your nose, in your ear,” he said. “I have been fighting them (management), and fighting them, and fighting them, and the sewer flies are just everywhere.”

Sdao said that he believes management does not clean the mausoleum.

Stone provided a quote attributed to Matt Petrocy, area vice president at Oakview, that addressed the speculation of the mausoleum not being cleaned.

“The mausoleum is cleaned weekly and picked up after each service. If the customer complained to the staff, then yes, they would have cleaned,” Petrocy stated.

Stone said that the “sewer flies” in question are not sewer flies, but phorid flies. Phorid flies are a type of fly that is commonly found in mausoleums.

A journal article called “Phorid Flies” written by Steve Jacobs, senior. extension associate at Penn State University, is published on the Penn State Extension website at extension.psu.edu/phorid-flies. Jacobs is currently an urban entomologist, which is a branch of zoology that is concerned with the study of insects.

“The flies are most disconcerting when seen flying about mausoleums or in churches that have crypts. In either of these cases it is important to contact a professional in the management of structural pests for advice,” Jacobs wrote.

Stone said she is certain that the bugs found in the Oakview mausoleum are phorid flies and that the management is taking every action to get rid of the bugs.

“They’re not sewer flies, and we have a plan in place to correct any issues with them,” she said. “I understand that by creating a kind of negative and positive air flow with fans in the ceiling, that those phorid flies can be controlled.”

Stone said that when the complaint about the flies was first heard, the management team checked the fans in the mausoleum to make sure that they were working.

“I actually think this was a recent discovery; we found that a few of the belts that are in the roof for those fans to keep those kinds of phorid flies under control were slipping, so we have replaced them,” she said.

There are currently five of the six rooftop fans operating, and one of the two motors. The motors run the fans to create circulation in the mausoleum to prevent the phorid flies, according to Stone.

The building also has three wall-sconce-style bug lights that help with the mitigation and control of the bugs, Stone said.

“I fully understand that any amount of bugs would be very upsetting to people who come into the mausoleum,” Stone said. “I think the explanation for why they are a little bit worse now is because of the repairs we need to take care of.”

The promised heating and cooling of the facility has caused some serious issues, according to Sdao, who said every summer the air conditioning breaks, and each winter the furnace stops working.

“That’s not what we paid for, right?” he said. “If it gets cold enough, the pipes are going to burst, and when they burst, we are going to have one big mess here.”

He said the failed air conditioning each summer results in a foul smell.

“Summertime comes and the air conditioner breaks every time, it gets so hot in there that, I hate saying this, but you have dead bodies in there in the heat. It smells really bad,” he said.

Stone said that there are no records of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system not working properly.

Sdao said he and his wife have also purchased a plot there, right next to their son. He wishes he could just pull the whole family out of there and move them somewhere with more maintenance.

“We have our loved ones in there, and now we have to fight the office, management, owners — we should not be doing that,” he said. “They need to maintain their building like it said in the contract.”

Stone commented on what she would say to the families affected by these issues.

“We want to be a good community partner. We want our customers and our families to come to our spaces, whether it be the cemetery, the mausoleum. (...) We want them to come there and be proud of where they’ve laid their family members to rest,” she said. “We want people to feel comfortable coming to us with issues that they see, concerns that they have and understand that they will be heard and we will listen to them and address concerns.”

Moving forward, Sdao said he is considering a lawsuit.