A couple whose home has suffered three sewer backups this year wants the City of Flin Flon to take responsibility, but Mayor Cal Huntley says it’s not yet clear where the fault lies.
Wayne and Deanna Carriere blame the city for backups in the basement of their Centennial Crescent home on Jan. 2, Jan. 11 and Oct. 12.
“Obviously we were not at fault…and this needs to be resolved,” the couple wrote in a letter to the city.
The Carrieres have requested full compensation for damages plus the cost of installing a backflow valve inside their home. The total cost would be nearly $19,000, according to bills and a quote provided by the Carrieres.
The Carrieres attended their third consecutive city council meeting on Tuesday, hoping for answers, but Huntley said the matter remains with the city’s insurer.
“If our insurer says we need to cover it, then it’s covered,” the mayor said. “If our insurance says ‘we’re covering a portion of it,’ then we have to make some decisions around here as to whether the city deems it our responsibility to cover the rest of it. But until we hear from the insurer, we’re not going to have that debate, because it could be a moot point.”
Wayne Carriere told council the couple is without insurance in light of the three backups in nine months. He asked whether the city would cover the tab for a backflow valve.
Huntley could not promise that, saying the Carrieres have to decide for themselves whether to install a valve at their own cost as the insurer examines the matter.
The mayor said the city put the matter to its insurer prior to the previous council meeting two weeks earlier. If another two weeks pass with no answers, he said the city would speak with someone higher up in the insurance company.
Asked what the insurer’s usual response time is, Huntley was candid: “Not good.”
Deanna Carriere expressed her disappointment that the city did not excavate the ground to address the situation until her home had sustained three backups. She and Wayne said the problem originated with a water main in a neighbour’s yard on Prince Charles Place.
“[We] would like to know how it is [our] problem to repair when it is not even on [our] property or [our] street?” the couple wrote in their letter.
Huntley said he understood the couple’s viewpoint and sympathized with them, but he continued to reiterate that he did not have an answer because the matter was with the city’s insurer.
“We can’t push our insurers. They do what they do,” he added.
