Leave the area and keep everyone out of it

Raw sewage carries bacteria, viruses and parasites — E. coli, salmonella, hepatitis A, giardia among them. Exposure happens through contact, through hand-to-mouth transfer, and through aerosolised particles you cannot see. Before anything else:

• Get children and pets out of the affected level and keep them out.
• Stop using every water fixture in the house. Every flush, sink and washing machine cycle adds to what is already backing up.
• Do not run the furnace or air handler if return ducting is in the affected area — it will distribute contamination through the building.
• Cut power to the affected area at the panel if you can do so without stepping into the water.
• Do not wet-vac, mop or bleach it. Household bleach does not sanitise porous material, and mopping spreads contamination across a wider footprint.

Why Mounds View has a sewer lateral problem

The pipe running from your house to the sewer main in the street is called the lateral, and in Mounds View it is the property owner responsibility — not the city. That is where most residential backups originate.

Mounds View has done more about this than most metro cities. Under the city H2O Preservation Program, the Council adopted Ordinance 967, which requires property owners to have the sewer service line televised before the transfer of title, and rehabilitated or repaired if the inspection finds defects. The stated purpose is eliminating groundwater infiltration into the sanitary sewer system. Owners submit a city application and fee as the first step of the process.

The practical consequence is a split housing stock. Homes that have changed hands since the ordinance took effect have had the lateral inspected and, where needed, repaired. Homes that have not changed hands in that window may be running on original clay or cast iron service line dating to the 1950s and 60s — with root intrusion, offset joints and cracks that have never been looked at. Given that local housing has a median construction year of 1976 and roughly three in ten homes predate 1970, that is a substantial number of properties.

What Category 3 cleanup actually involves

Sewage work is not water damage work with gloves on. It follows a different protocol because the objective is different: with clean water the goal is to dry materials, with sewage the goal is to remove contamination and then dry what remains.

1. Containment. Plastic barriers and negative air pressure isolate the work area so contaminated air is not pushed into the rest of the house. Negative air machines with HEPA filtration exhaust outside.
2. Extraction and solids removal. Contaminated water and solids are pumped out and disposed of as regulated waste, not down a household drain.
3. Removal of porous material. Carpet, pad, insulation, particleboard, drywall to a height above the contamination line, and any upholstered or fabric contents that were touched. Porous material contacted by Category 3 water is not cleaned. It is discarded. This is not negotiable and any contractor offering to shampoo the carpet instead should be declined.
4. Cleaning and sanitising. Hard surfaces are cleaned first — disinfectant does not work through a layer of soil — then treated with an EPA-registered antimicrobial appropriate to the surface.
5. Drying. Once contamination is removed, structural drying proceeds as with any water loss, with daily moisture readings until dry standard is reached.
6. Verification and rebuild. Post-remediation verification where warranted, then reconstruction of what was removed.

Insurance: check your endorsement before you need it

This is the part that catches Minnesota homeowners out. Standard homeowners policies commonly exclude sewer and drain backup entirely. Coverage typically requires a specific water backup endorsement, often sold in capped tiers — five thousand, ten thousand, twenty-five thousand dollars — and a finished basement can consume a low tier quickly once flooring, drywall, mechanicals and contents are counted.

Pull your declarations page and look for a water backup or sewer backup endorsement by name. If it is not listed, you almost certainly do not have it. Adding it is generally inexpensive. We do not sell insurance and we do not adjust claims — this is simply the single most common gap we see raised after a backup, and it is trivially fixable on a quiet afternoon.

If you do have coverage, document before anything is touched. Photograph the standing water, the affected rooms, the contents and the source. Keep the disposal inventory the crew produces. Adjusters approve what is documented.

How this service works