Stranded, with no sewer, thanks to WiFi

Jeff Wheeler, Star Tribune

Steve Lang in the back yard of his home on E. River Terrace in Minneapolis Tuesday afternoon. The portable toilet had been delivered a couple of hours earlier.

At one Minneapolis house, residents got creative about bathing and -- ahem -- more amid sewer pipe mess.

By LORA PABST, Star Tribune

Last update: July 8, 2009 - 10:23 AM

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For the past five days, Steve Lang and his sister Angela Lang showered in the back yard using a hose. When they needed to use the toilet, they went to the neighborhood co-op, or sometimes Steve Lang just used a plastic bag.

They had to quit using water in Lang's Minneapolis home after a renter noticed sewage backing up from a drain in the basement apartment. They followed the markings for the waste pipe out to the street, where they found the likely culprit: a wooden pole installed in February for the city's Wi-Fi equipment.

"The pole was on top of the sewer line," said Angela Lang, who is visiting her brother from Texas. "Last Friday, the whole mess collapsed."

The Langs called City Hall on Friday and Monday, but no one came to fix it. On Tuesday, fed up with waiting for the city, Angela Lang called Whistleblower. A few hours later, trucks filled the street in front of the East River Terrace home. A portable toilet was delivered to the back yard until the work could be finished today.

Lisa Cerney, the city's director of surface water and sewers, said the city would have acted sooner had it known that the house had lost its sewer service. She said it's still unclear what caused the rupture.

"The silver lining is that now that they're all out here, everybody's working together to get the job done," Angela Lang said Tuesday afternoon.

At first, the Langs thought that they were dealing with a blocked pipe, so they paid a company $180 to clean it. Once they realized that the city Wi-Fi pole might have sunk and damaged the pipe, they called the sewer hotline number.

Cerney said a city worker went to the street, in the city's Prospect Park neighborhood, on Friday but found nothing wrong with the sewer main and found no one at Lang's home.

"Since we weren't getting any more calls, we didn't really know how they were being affected by it," she said.

Even though it was a holiday, Cerney said residents can always call the sewer hotline and she recommends that they continue to do so until their situation is resolved.

Over the 4th of July weekend, the Langs were forced to improvise. They used a hose with a garden sprayer to get clean, protecting their privacy with a plastic tarp.

On Monday, the Langs' frustration grew. One city employee told them that the company in charge of the city wireless system would have to deal with the pole first. Then another employee told them the pole could be removed, but they would need to hire a private contractor to do the plumbing work.

Cerney said the city usually requires a homeowner to hire a contractor when there is a problem with the sewer connection to the house. After the cause is determined, the homeowner can file a claim to be reimbursed.

"This [situation] may be more cut and dry," she said. "The city will be handling the cost of it."

After the pole was removed Tuesday, the workers told Steve Lang that it looked like a grounding rod had struck the pipe. As for the pole, they said, it had been placed in a dead zone and it was going to be removed anyway.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628