Montreal residents furious over constant sewage floods: ‘It’s like a river down here’

Residents in the Town of Mount Royal in Montreal say their homes have been flooded multiple times and are concerned that their municipality isn’t doing enough to help solve the problem.

Among those residents is Alessandra Pasteris. The first time her basement flooded was three years ago when two feet of water and sewage destroyed most of her belongings.

“It was so dramatic,” she told Global News. “I saw my son’s toys floating away. It was like a river down here.”

That cost her family more than $80,000 in repairs.

“We had an engineer come in to evaluate our plumbing setup to make sure that everything was OK,” she explained. “We added extra industrial backwater valves and another backup sump pump to the ones already in place, just to make sure that water could still pump out in the event of power failure.”

Still, after that and other measures, last year water came in again — twice. Then, a few weeks ago, another flood — about a foot of water and sewage.

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“We’re at the point where insurance companies refuse to cover us,” she pointed out. “So we basically have to put the basement back on our own dime.”

It was another $80,000, she estimates, pointing out that multiple homes in western TMR have all had similar problems. At the last council meeting, resident after resident raised the issue, arguing that water enters their homes even if they put their own mitigation measures in place.

One issue that came up was the city admitting that they haven’t been able to find anyone to clean the sewers for two years.

However, according to the mayor, Peter Malouf, the city is taking steps but that they want to ensure what they do will indeed fix the problem and not waste taxpayers money.

“We’ve been working very hard with consultants and our engineering team to try and figure out what the problem is,” he pointed out.

He added that they also have to work with surrounding municipalities since part of the problem is that other areas drain into TMR. According to him, finding a solution will take time. As for the sewers not being cleaned, he said that they do get flushed during heavy rains, but that despite that, authorities are working on getting them cleaned.

The city plans to have an information session for residents about how homeowners can better protect themselves in the meantime.

Nevertheless Pasteris and others are considering legal action.