Homeowner on the hook for thousands after county contractor destroys sewer line
ROSEVILLE, Minn. – A road project turned costly for a Roseville mom. When crews struck a sewer pipe in her yard, she got stuck with the bill.
The homeowner turned to WCCO's Jennifer Mayerle to help her hold someone accountable.
Sandy Hanson takes pride in her home.
"My roots are Roseville, and I love it here and I love my home," Sandy said.
Last summer, she learned Ramsey County would widen her road and make other safety upgrades. She knew it would be an inconvenience, but didn't know it would cost her.
"And all summer it was messy," she said.
But she says she didn't expect it to impact her home.
"I started hearing like a gurgling noise downstairs on the toilet," she said. "My washer started backing up."
Sandy says her problems started after contractors, hired by the county, left for the Fourth of July weekend.
"It was just backing into my house so all this sewer, dirt and [laughs] like your sewer stuff was coming back into my house through the floor drain," she said.
She says a plumber worked for hours but couldn't diagnose the cause.
"He kept calling it a 'catastrophic issue with your pipes,'" she said.
Her son and his family were staying with her over the holiday. They were without water for four days. So they relied on showering at relatives' homes, and using the hose to clean dishes.
"It was a pretty traumatic experience for me and my kids that were visiting," she said.
When the workers returned after the holiday, she says they discovered the issue.
"My line was just gone. Like, it was gone. They had completely destroyed it when they put the pipe over it," she said.
She has a plumber bill, plus paid a restoration company to suck out the sewer water, and there's water damage downstairs. She's waited for someone to accept responsibility.
The contract between Ramsey County and New Look Contracting says the county isn't liable, and it's the contractor's responsibility to cover the cost. The contractor blames Roseville for not marking sewer lines correctly. The city says it fulfilled its portion of the job and denied Sandy's claim.
It's all left her on the hook for the cost of the repairs.
"You don't think, 'Oh, I need to be prepared for a county project to wreck my house.' You just don't think of that as a homeowner, you think, 'Well, I'll be covered,'" she said.
Months later, Sandy says she's at her wits end.
"I don't have the time to keep like trying to chase people to do the right thing," she said.
So far, Sandy has paid nearly $4,000. She estimates upcoming repair work will run a few thousand more.
Since WCCO got involved, Ramsey County tells us public works is working with her on an insurance claim, and it's talking with the contractor. The contractor did not reply to our request for a comment.
The city of Roseville responded with this statement:
The City of Roseville's involvement with the Ramsey County road reconstruction project located on County Road B2 was very limited and included responding to an "underground utility locate request" issued by New Look Construction. The City of Roseville properly fulfilled the request and marked City utilities, provided maps, and City documents to identify those locations in the area requested by New Look Construction.
Given Ramsey County's ownership of the project, and the City of Roseville's proper fulfillment of their duty to mark their utilities for this road construction project, the claim for damage to the sewer service line and any respective damages were denied by the City's insurance carrier, League of Minnesota Cities.
We certainly sympathize with the homeowner and encourage Ramsey County and/or New Look Construction to make this right with the homeowner.